Wedding Eve
by Evan Jameson
Summary: The Doctor and Amy have just returned from their harrowing adventure on Alfava Metraxis and are sitting on her bed. This is how that conversation could have gone. Now completed, although not as originally intended! 11/Amy AU, Romance, Adventure. R/R!
1. Leadworth

Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who; the character, setting, etc. is owned by... Well, I don't really know who. The BBC, I assume, but it definitely isn't me.

A/N: Welcome, welcome, one and all, to my very first fanfiction. Well, published fanfiction that is, I have several finished and unfinished stories sitting on my various hard drives waiting to be betaed, published, or deleted. My name is Evan, Evan Jameson, and I am a proud member of the Harry Potter fandom. Well, until a few days ago, when the Doctor Who fandom began to draw me in. Now, children, read, enjoy, please do review. I need reviews for this story because, in addition to being my very first fanfiction out in the open, I am going to continue this story. My problem is that I have several possible continuations bouncing around my head (and some actually outlined!), so I need your help. Please, refer to the Author's Note at the bottom to vote on your favorite continuation in the review. Also, any grammatical errors are completely my fault, since this story is not betaed. However, I'm kind of a grammar nut, so there should be very few. You may notice alot of commas however. I love commas. Love love love commas. Too much in fact, but this has gone on long enough. Now, after the big bold warning, the story!

**WARNING: Contains massive spoilers for Doctor Who season 5 (or 31, depending on how you're counting). The main spoiler (WHICH IS HUGE) is for Season 5 Episode 5, Flesh and Stone **** (as in the entire last 5 minutes, which is a HUGELY IMPORTANT FIVE MINUTES of the episode)****. This is the continuation of Episode 4, Time of Angels, and it just aired yesterday. So, ladies and gentlemen, if you have NOT seen Flesh and Stone, I beg you, do not read this fic yet, because the spoiler is an ABSOLUTELY GIGANTIC ONE. The fic also contains minor spoilers for Episode 1, The Eleventh Hour, and most likely for the other episodes in Season 5 (along with some older episodes no doubt, but those shouldn't be spoilers anymore). So, now that this excessively long warning is over, continue. Enjoy. Don't ruin the episode for yourself, please.**

P.S. (A/N 2?): BTW, this doesn't really explain what's happening, I leave out those big explanations for people who haven't seen the show. If you haven't seen the show, watch at least Season 5 to get an idea, although I highly recommend the entirety of the new series, and as much of the old series as you can get your hands on. Again, if you haven't seen Flesh and Stone, **BEWARE OF HUGE, LIFE-CHANGING SPOILERS.**

"I nearly died. I was alone, in the dark, and I nearly died. And it made me think."

"Well yes, natural. I think sometimes. Well, lots of times," replied the man sitting next to Amy Pond on her bed. Having just returned from a harrowing adventure with near-death, Amy had brought this man, The Doctor, with her to explain what she was running from, why she had gone with him.

Amy had showed him her Wedding dress, her engagement ring, and told him about her wedding. The next morning. And now, sitting on her bed with this man, this man who she had thought of since that one fateful night when she was seven, she realized.

"About who I want. About _who_ I want. You know what I mean?" she asked, staring into his chocolate eyes.

"Yeah." He stared right back, not letting his gaze waver until he started shaking his head. "No."

Amy still held the Doctor's gaze as she let her scarlet hair fall, framing her face and settling gently alongside her chin. She took care to enunciate her words as she repeated, "About _who_ I want."

He agreed once again. "Oh right, yeah." Then, with a slight pause, he continued. "No, still not getting it."

She sighed, closing her eyes for a second. "Doctor, in a word. In one very simple word even you can understand..."

Any stopped speaking and placed her palm gently on the Doctor's cheek. Her fingers toyed with the hair curling around his right ear as she leaned into him, bringing her leg up onto his own. The Doctor's eyes widened as Amy leaned in, intent on pressing her human lips against his own Gallifreyan mouth.

The Doctor jumped away, over her bedpost in an attempt to extricate himself from her kiss. "No! You're getting married in the morning!"

As he jumped away from her, towards the TARDIS doors, Amy followed him. "Well the morning's a long time away," she said, pinning him against the doors of the TARDIS. She reached up to his shoulders and drew his suspenders down, smiling the whole time.

"Amy, listen to me," the Doctor said urgently, pulling his suspenders back up. "I am nine hundred and seven years old. Do you understand what that means?" He raced around her, trying to escape her wandering hands.

Amy stepped up to him again, running her hands down his wiry chest. "It's been a while?" she asked, smirking at his bewildered expression.

"Ye- No, no. No, I'm nine hundered and seven and look at me, I don't get older, I just change. You get older, I don't, and this can't ever work." He stepped out of her grasp, drawing his suspenders back up to his shoulders. He stepped back to the TARDIS, feeling its doors against his back. In the corner of his brain that was connected to the heart of his TARDIS, he felt that the time machine was laughing at his predicament.

Amy laughed, pouting at his naievete. "Oh, you are sweet Doctor, but I really wasn't suggesting anything quite so... long term." With this statement, smiling at the Doctor's still-confused face, Amy stepped up to him, pressing herself against his chest. She cupped his face, allowing her fingers to trace small patterns along his neck.

The Doctor lost himself in thought as he remembered the last woman he had let kiss him. His rapid-fire brain froze for a millisecond or two, remembering the feel of her blonde hair, her fingers on his neck in a very similar position, and her lips... Her tongue...

The millisecond or two was all it took, and Amy was on him again. Her lips pressed against his own, and he lost himself. The sensations of the present mixed with his memory and his eyes drifted closed, remembering Rose Tyler. His hands drifted to Amy's hips, caressing her until he realized that what his hands were feeling were not the same curves he was remembering.

Jerking his hands away as if he had been burned, the Doctor froze. 'On one contiuum, this is not the woman I loved. She is very different, and very much not Rose,' he thought, taking only a fraction of a millisecond to weigh his differing opinions. 'On the inverse quadratic contiuum, this is very nice, and Amy is such a very sweet young woman. However, even in that contiuum, she is a very, very young woman compared to my years.'

The Doctor finally was able to wrench himself out of the pleasurable sensations he was feeling. He gave her the very last objection, the very last interruption he had the willpower for. "But you're human, you're Amy, you're getting married in the morning!"

Amy, sensing his weakening will, pressed herself to him again. She kissed him with all she had, expressing everything to him. Her unbridled lust, her growing respect for him, her gratitude at his latest actions which ensured her continued, and past, existence. She put everything she had into this kiss, to be sure that he felt it.

And feel it he did. The Doctor melted against her emotions, open to him through a Time Lord's open psychic link caused by their touching lips. He turned her around, pressing her back against the door of the TARDIS, kissing her with every ounce of raw passion he had. Amy let herself melt into him, giving every tiny bit of passion straight back to him with plenty left over. She gave him the longing she had for him, the years of sexual frustration of being with someone like Rory, and the combined feelings from every single dream she had had of the Doctor since hs saved the world from the Atraxi and left her, yet again. She knew that he could leave at any moment and was prepared to give him every reason to come back immediately this time, or better, not leave her at all.

The Doctor allowed the kiss to go on, thoroughly enjoying the sensations and the feel of Amy pond under his hands and attached to his lips. Then, suddenly, the second half of his brain, the half that was constantly organizing and working through clues, connected two very important clues. He broke off the kiss, albeit reluctantly, and looked Amy in her slightly-glazed eyes.

"In the morning..."

Amy's brain, so recently freed of the oh-so-pleasurable kiss, kickstarted to speak to the Doctor. "Doctor..."

"It's you, it's all about you. Everything... It's about you."

"Hold that thought," Amy replied, misunderstanding the Doctor's seeming comprehension. She spun away from him and walked around the foot of her bed, sitting down and readying herself for what (she thought) was coming.

"Amy Pond," the Doctor said, still watching her and still partially stunned, both from their passionate embrace and his revelation. "Mad, impossible Amy Pond. I don't know why, I have no idea, but quite possibly the single most important thing in the history of the universe is that I get you sorted out right now." With this, the Doctor raced to Amy, whose smile only grew wider.

"That's what I've been trying to tell you," Amy said, laying back on her bed to prepare for the Doctor. She was surprised, then, when he grabbed her hand and drew her off of the bed, pulling her towards the TARDIS.

"Come on!" he said as they approached the large blue police box. He spun her towards the doors of the TARDIS, but Amy used her momentum to spin into his arms, momentarily surprising him.

Amy pulled the Doctor into her embrace, leaning into him for another passionate kiss. "Doctor..." she whispered as she started to close her eyes.

He was only able to resist because of the surprising revelation that he had just realized. Amy was startled yet again when he spun her around and gently pushed her into the TARDIS. As the DOCTOR looked back, he noticed Amy's alarm clock change to twelve midnight, making the date June 26, 2010.

'That's the date,' he thought to himself, 'the date that the cracks are coming from. But what is it?'

A/N: So, ladies and gentlemen, that is the (current) ending of my first and so far only fanfiction available to the public. Please review, and when you do, please vote (if you want me to continue the story) on one of these possible continuances (with sub-options! Yay!):

1: More 11/Amy, yay! Either AU, with adventures of my own making, or following each episode with changed scenes of missing moments of 11/Amy romance (or UST). Pick one - AU or not - if you vote for this one

2: Rose comes back (most likely ignoring Journey's End, possibly ignoring Doomsday as well). This could lead to either 11/Amy, or 11/Rose, so pick which one! Either way, there's sure to be drama and catfighting!

3: Neither, the Doctor regaining his will (common sense?) and saving the world in an AU sort of way.

4: Make a suggestion! If I like it, I may use it. However, just in case I don't like it, also vote for one of the other options.

Now, no matter which is picked, there will be adventures, this will (most likely, unless I do the series of scenes sub-option from option 1) be completely AU, and to be honest, I'll probably update on a random schedule, pretty infrequently. I don't mean months between chapters, but probably a week+ between each. If you're more worried about the update schedule more than the content, pick Option 1, sub-Option non-AU; that will force me to update roughly every week, two weeks tops. So please, Read, Review, vote. Even flames are welcome (since I know they'll come anyway)!

Thank you, and good night,

Evan


	2. Revelation

A/N: Ladies and gentlemen, CHAPTER TWO. This was quick, which I'm glad for. Read, review, and enjoy. Notice that this chapter doesn't have a big warning; there's some spoilers still, but much less. We're totally moving into an AU now kids, enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the kissing!

The Doctor gently pushed Amy into the TARDIS, pulling the door shut as he followed her in. She turned towards him, a hungry glint in her eye, but he deftly stepped around her and into the myriad corridors of the time machine.

"Doctor?" Amy asked, now thoroughly confused. "Where are you going?"

His voice echoed back to her, "The library! Tomorrow, Amy Pond, tomorrow!"

Pouting, Amy followed the sound of his voice, looking for the library. She passed her bedroom, she passed a door that said "DO NOT OPEN" on it, and she passed a closed door that simply said "Belgium". Amy gave that door a confused look before continuing on and finding an open door that led to the library. Inside, she found the Doctor pacing around a large table.

On the table was a large collection of books - at first glance, Amy figured there to be somewhere around one hundred books on the table alone. Most of them were opened, some had bookmarks, and one was sitting on top of a stack of opened books. The Doctor was reading aloud from the book at the top of the stack as she approached him.

"...the quantum fluctuations reverbrate against the seventh dimension, causing triple quasi-power fluctuations to resonate through the ninth, second, and fourth dimensions," he was reading. "The resonance across the second dimension causes visible residue where the reverberation is strongest, weakest, and at each of the six pro-factor temporal modulus points inbetween."

Amy, now thoroughly confused, whispered the last part to herself. "Six pro-factor temporal modulus points?"

The Doctor paused in his reading to look up at her, surprise and comprehension etched on his face. "That's it!" he cried, racing around the table and picking Amy up in a bear hug. He swung her around and said, "That's it! If it reverbrates across the ninth, it ignores unwritten history and gains the ability to unwrite!"

With one final swing, the Doctor lowered Amy to the ground and pulled a piece of paper and - of all things - a feather quill from his coat pocket. He started writing, talking the whole time. "The strongest... weakest... one each for each of the specific temporal etchings of the Chapter houses..."

Amy, finally having enough of this strange behavior, tried to snap him out of it. "Doctor?"

"Strongest because of the fourth..."

"Doctor?" she tried again, shouting this time.

"Weakest because of the seventh..."

Realizing that he truly wasn't listening, Amy stepped up to him and smacked the back of his head.

The Doctor simply lifted his left hand to rub his sore skull while still writing. "Location depending on the second... fourth quantum divisor to the third, on each of the six... Hmm..."

The Doctor raised the quill to his mouth and gently nibbled on the feathered end. Amy decided to resort to stronger methods, and she kicked him in the shin. "Doctor?!"

The Doctor looked at her for a moment. "Amy, I'm busy! This is important, please." With that, he continued writing and speaking. "Aha! Each of the six nonfactor temporal hypermodulus points... different because of the divisor to the third!"

Finally, Amy was fed up. Completely angry at being ignored, she brought out her strongest weapon. Gently turning the Doctor's head, she pressed her lips to his in a strong, fiery kiss. Finally, the Doctor had stopped ignoring her, and by the way his eyes had widened, wasn't going to ignore her any time soon.

When Amy had to break for air, she stepped back and said, "Now, Doctor, explain what just happened?"

The Doctor spluttered, still taken aback by the surprise kiss. When Amy raised her eyebrow and started tapping her foot, he realized the trouble he was in.

"Amy, I've figured it out! When, where, and why the cracks-"

"No!" Amy interrupted the Doctor. "We were in my room, I was kissing you, and then you ran into the TARDIS to do research!?"

The Doctor's expression tightened somewhat, before relaxing. "Amy, you're young and passionate, I'll give you that. But we need to stop these cracks from forming."

Amy's foot just kept on tapping. "Not good enough. We have fifteen minutes, don't we?"

The Doctor blushed before retorting. "Fifteen minutes? Amy, please. It would be much lon- Wait! No, saving the world, must save the world. The universe! Existence!"

"Not good enough, Doctor. Keep trying. Or don't, we have three bedrooms to choose from."

The Doctor blushed brighter, but kept trying. "Amy, please. I'm nine hundred and seven."

Amy uncrossed her arms, putting them behind her back and arching slightly, pushing her chest forward. She inwardly cheered when his eyes were drawn down from her face by her action. Even if they did snap back up again, it was a victory.

"Amy, first of all, I am a Time Lord. You are Human. It doesn't quite work like that. I will outlive you by milennia."

Amy sighed and opened her mouth, but the Doctor pressed his finger to her lips and continued.

"Second of all, you are one forty-fifth my age. It doesn't work like that."

Amy simply listened, arching her back even more and stepping slightly towards the Doctor.

"Thirdly, Amy, right now, I, we, need to save all of existence."

She stepped closer to him, her chest now lightly brushing his own. Snapped out of his speech, the Doctor looked down at their point of intersection. When he noticed exactly what was... intersecting... his chest, he turned a bright shade of red and stepped back, bumping into the table. The stacks of books tottered, but neither seemed to notice.

"Umm... yes... and thirdly... umm... Ahem." The Doctor shook his head and met Amy's eyes again. "Fourthwise, Amy. If you want to go somewhere after we save the universe and discuss this more, we can. But just so you know," he started, taking a step towards her. His chest pressed against her own and his hands encircled her narrow waist.

"I only-" The Doctor spun Amy around, pressing her against the table and leaning into her. Several books fell of the table, but the pair paid them no mind. "- do long term."

With that, the Doctor released Amy, who sagged against the table. He spun back out of the library, literally sprinting down the hallway.

Amy slowly regained her balance, reeling from the intensity in his gaze, the fierce, but gentle strength in his embrace. Slowly, she shook her head, getting her concentration back. When she felt up to it, she took off after the Doctor, back down the hallway to the control room. On her way, she passed the same three doors... but something was off.

After passing the first door, she went back to it, giving it a closer look. "I know this said Belgium earlier..." The door now had a sign on it that read, "I'm with Stupid" and bore an arrow pointing towards the control room.

As Amy continued on, wondering about the changing sign, she noticed the second door. This one was also changed! Instead of a "Do Not Open" sign, it simply had a mirror!

"Oh, clever, Doctor, I get it, I'm stupid," Amy whispered to herself, shaking her head in disbelief.

Apparently the Doctor heard, because he shouted from the control room, "No you are not, Amelia Pond! Not stupid, brilliant! Now are we going to save existence or not?"

Amy simply looked at the mirror in confusion before continuing her sprint towards the control room. On the way, she passed her bedroom, exactly like it had been. When she finally reached the control room, she saw the Doctor furiously typing on what looked like an old-style typewriter attached to the center console.

"Ah, Amelia Pond. Ready to save existence?"

Amy walked around the center console as the Doctor stopped typing and reached for a button higher up on the console, almost out of arm's reach to his right. As he reached, and Amy walked towards him, his hand brushed against her ribcage, sending shivers down her spine.

"Of course, Doctor. But after this, we're going somewhere nice..." Amy put her hand on the Doctor's, turning it to cup her side. "And..." She stepped in close to him, putting her face even with his own. "Quiet." With that, Amy placed a gentle kiss on the tip of the Doctor's nose and turned away, pacing around the center console.

"So, where to, Doctor?"

Shaking off his daze and shaking his right hand slightly, the Doctor looked at Amy through the time rotor.

"To the third crack, Amy. To save existence. You'll recognize it when we get there, my dear, because we're going to visit the tenth of her name!"


	3. The Crack Above

A/N: This chapter was going to be longer, but I liked where I ended, so it's getting split into two pieces. Less romance in this chapter, but I think you'll like what is there. Now, notice, this chapter DOES include a spoiler warning - but if you heeded the first warning, this one shouldn't be a problem. So, read, review, enjoy!

**WARNING: This chapter contains spoilers for 5x02, The Beast Below. I would not suggest you read this if you haven't seen that episode.**

Disclaimer: I don't own anything! Please don't eat me...

The Doctor and Amelia Pond were hurtling through the time vortex, holding onto the TARDIS with all they had. The Doctor was pressing puttons and pulling levers throughout their bumpy ride, adjusting the course as necessary.

"Doctor! Why is the ride so-" Amy was cut off as she almost lost her hold on the TARDIS center console. She let out a yelp, readjusting her grip to avoid falling.

"We just came this way, Amy, and the vortex is repairing. We're literally fighting against the tide!" The Doctor reached out with one foot to flick a switch as he was holding onto a lever with each hand and depressing a button with his chin. "It's a little harder, but that's why my TARDIS is the best! Type 40's are a little tougher than the newer types. She can handle it!"

The TARDIS slowed to a halt and the bumpiness gradually subsided. The Doctor strode to the doors, but stopped before opening them. He looked back at Amy, who was following him to the doors.

"My dear, why don't you do the honors? I believe that our friend will be right across the hall."

Amy looked at him suspiciously, before opening the door and stepping out. When she looked across the darkened hall, the only thing she saw was...

"Ahh! A Smiler!" Amy screamed, jumping back into the TARDIS. The Doctor was laughing at her while helping her up off of the floor.

"Yes my dear, old friends, aren't they?"

Amy smacked him on the arm before sagging into him, putting all of her weight onto his surprisingly strong frame.

"Umm... Amy... Are you alright?" the Doctor asked her, cradling her against his chest. He could feel her heart beating, ber breath tracing its path up along his neck. His own hearts started beating faster, and he stumbled back to the handrail surrounding the center console, leaning against it with Amy's lithe form pressing against him.

"You scared me Doctor, now you get to comfort me. It's only right, isn't it?"

The Doctor looked into her eyes sheepishly. "Of course, my dear. Just relax. I'll hold you." The Doctor tightened his arms around her, drawing her into his protective embrace.

"Thank you, Doctor," Amy replied, drawing her arms inside of his own and placing her hands on his chest. "Just what I need, my protective Doctor playing tricks on me."

The Doctor looked down at her noticing, not for the first time, the way her red hair fell along her face, how each individual strand reflected the light. "How would you like it if I made it up to you, Amelia Pond?"

Amy looked up at him, closing her hands around the fabric of his shirt. "What do you mean, Doctor?"

The Doctor, seemingly battling with himself, finally moved. He dipped his head to her own and laid a very gentle kiss on her lips.

Amy gasped when he drew his lips away. Her own mouth was tingling, with feeling of a gentle touch from butterfly wings still present. She leaned towards him again, before he stood from his leaning position and brought her fully to her own feet.

"Come now, Amy Pond, I've made up to you. Now it's time to see our actual friend, no?"

The Doctor and Amy made their way out of the Tardis, into the darkened corridors of Starship U.K. The Doctor licked his finger and raised it int he air, thinking for a moment.

"That way," the Doctor said, pointing down the corridor. As the pair made their way through the ship, he continued talking to Amy. "You see, the cracks are only a symptom. There's some big event, some big bang in the entirety of space-time. The cracks are coming from that bang, but they aren't the problem."

The pair reached what looked like a service ladder and the Doctor helped Amy begin the climb. As she was climbing, she spoke down to him.

"So, why aren't we going to the source? Stop it before it happens?"

"Think of a windowpane, Amy. If a hammer hits the glass, it shatters. The worst cracks are in the center, where the hammer hit, but they spread. We can't stop the hammer hitting - it's out of our control - but we can fix the cracks. We're just working our way up - starting with the smaller ones before we tackle the biggest one, in the center."

Amy made an agreeing sound, continuing the long climb up the ladder. She finally reached the top and lifted up the hatch above her, sending light down into the darkened corridor.

The pair climbed out of what was effectively a manhole into one of the main thoroughfares of Starship U.K. As they climbed out of the hole, they were greeted by four figures in black hooded robes.

One of the figures stepped forward and said in a deep, grating voice, "Her Majesty will see you now."

Amy was shaking, scared at seeing the same figures that had kidnapped her on their last visit to Starship U.K. The Doctor put his arm around her, speaking to the figures.

"Good to see you, chaps. So, is good ol' Liz 10 on the throne still? Good to hear, good to hear. Shall we?"

The hooded figures surrounded the time-travelling pair, leading them off to meet the Queen of England, Elizabeth the Tenth.

=x=

"Doctor! Amy! Good to see you both." Elizabeth rose from her chair to come and shake the Doctor's hand. She gave Amy a hug before looking her over. "You look much better in proper clothing, sweetheart. Very nice."

The Doctor laughed before he was silenced by a look from Amy.

"Thank you, your Majesty," Amy replied, dropping into a clumsy curtsey.

Elizabeth laughed, shaking her head. "No, no, Amy, please. You and the Doctor are my friends. Liz, always Liz."

The Doctor smiled before asking Elizabeth, "Mind if I ask, Liz, but how long has it been since we left?"

Elizabeth looked at him strange, before realizing what he meant. "Oh," she laughed, "of course. The Doctor in the TARDIS. It's been... let me think. Six months, give or take."

The Doctor brought out his sonic screwdriver and began adjusting settings on the side. He started waving it around, seeming to follow some incomprehensible pattern in the sound it made.

Amy and Elizabeth watched him for a moment before turning to each other.

"So, Amy, how about you two? How long has it been?"

"Oh, about a week," Amy replied, thinking of the adventures that had been packed into that short week. "We've done so much already though."

Elizabeth raised one eyebrow, looking at Amy suggestively. "Oh, really? Quick, aren't you?"

Amy blushed, recalling the last few tumultuous hours with the Doctor. "No, no! Not like that. Well... not for lack of trying."

The Doctor spoke from behind Amy, startling the redhead. "Not for lack of trying indeed. Liz, two things. First, are there any spacesuits onboard? And second, why don't you tell Amy the story of Elizabeth the Seventh seducing the mysterious Doctor?"

Amy gasped. "No! Really? Liz, I have to know!"

Elizabeth laughed before replying. "It's not what you think, Amy. And as for you Doctor, here." Elizabeth stepped over to her writing desk and scribbled a short note. She took out a strange small metal box from a drawer and pressed it to the bottom of the paper. When she moved the box, there was a perfect holographic imprint on the page.

"Step outside and ask any of my guards to lead you to the Requisition. Get whatever you need from there - show them this for payment. Come back once you have whatever it is you need, and we'll get on it."

The Doctor took the note and thanked Elizabeth before sprinting out the doors. Elizabeth gestured to Amy to take a seat on her bed, and the two women began gossiping.

"You see, Amy, I grew up on tales of the Doctor. Some of my early ancestors hated him, but we've grown to realize exactly what he's done for Britain, Earth, and the very universe. So it goes like this..."

=x=

After a few hours, the Doctor returned to Elizabeth's suite, carrying two space suits and a variety of other gadgets.

"Well ladies, are you ready? I may need a hand out there, but all three of us can't go. One of us needs to manage the airlock. Who wants to take a trip into the great black?"

Elizabeth and Amy looked at each other before raising their fists at the same time. Amy counted down from three, and her fist flashed down into two fingers spread into a V. At the same time, Elizabeth kept her fist closed.

"Damn," Amy said, "Rock beats scissors. I guess you get to go."

Elizabeth cheered, taking one of the space suits from the Doctor. "Don't worry Amy, the airlock is pretty easy to work. You won't strand us out there."

Amy blanched, not even having considered that possibility. "Umm... Doctor, maybe..."

He smiled at her, chuckling at her face. "Amy, dear, it's two buttons. Open, and close. We step in, then you press open. We leave, you press close. On the way back, it's the same thing."

"Oh, okay... If you're sure, Doctor..."

The Doctor put his free hand on Amy's shoulder, reassuring her. "You'll be fine, Amy. If you want, I'm sure dear Liz can get a smiler to help you out?"

Amy quickly shook her head. "No thank you! I'll be fine!"

With that, a smiling Doctor and openly chuckling Liz lead Amy to the nearest airlock, ready to go out and start saving the universe.

A/N: More to come soon! Work is ramping up unfortunately, so my update schedule might slow down, but I promise, they're still coming! Read and review please, the reviews keep me going!


	4. Below the Crack

A/N: Hello all! Welcome to Chapter 4 of Wedding Eve! The warnings for this one are the same as the last chapter; **SPOILERS FOR 5x02, THE BEAST BELOW**. There is also some continuing spoilers from 5x05, Flesh and Stone I guess, but compared to Chapter 1, we might as well be talking about something completely separate. This chapter is a direct continuation from the last, so make sure you remember how that one went before starting this one. The next chapter will most likely take a little bit to get out, since I'll have to wrap my brain around the repercussions from this chapter - but enough of that! Read, enjoy, and Review!

Disclaimer: I don't own the Doctor, Amy, the TARDIS, etc, etc, etc.

When the trio reached the airlock, the Doctor and Liz began putting on their suits. With Amy helping them, the bulky suits were on quickly, and the Doctor began piling the various gadgets he had brought into the pockets and compartments in the suit.

When he finished packing away everything he had brought from the Requisition, the Doctor smiled and sealed his helmet.

"Okay, I'm ready. Liz? Amy?"

"Yes Doctor, we were ready when you started packing your pockets with candy."

"Candy? Candy! Now now, Amy. I've got a hyperspatial temporic field, a-"

Elizabeth cut him off, "Yes Doctor. Candy. Now can we go?"

The Doctor sighed before entering the airlock. Right before following him, Elizabeth turned to Amy and pressed a small circular piece of foil into her hand. "Amy," she whispered, "this is a Com-U. The Doctor and I each have one to talk to each other. Don't talk, or we'll be able to hear you, but I'll see if I can't get the Doctor to talk about... well, you know."

Amy blushed, but nodded and said, "Thank you."

"Just on your earlobe now, press it on and it'll stick," Elizabeth replied as she turned and entered the airlock. The Doctor looked at her quizzically, but she simply said, "Girl stuff."

Even a nine hundred year old time travelling alien who recognizes someone avoiding the truth will not address the topic of 'Girl Stuff'. The Doctor wisely kept silent as Amy waved to the pair and pressed the Open button, causing the inner airlock doors to slam shut and the airlock to begin depressurizing.

The Doctor and Elizabeth drifted out of the airlock once the outer doors opened. The Doctor raised his hand with the sonic screwdriver inside the glove. He began waving his hand around before finally setting on a direction along the side of the ship. "That way Liz, what we're looking for is that way."

The pair set off, using the handholds alongside of the massive spaceship to move towards the crack. As they moved, Elizabeth started up a conversation.

"So, Doctor. How has it been, traveling along with Amy?"

The Doctor kept pulling himself along as he spoke. "It's been good, good, good. Well, strange lately, but good."

"Strange? Do tell, Doctor."

The Doctor spoke as they made their way along, telling Elizabeth the Tenth of his recent adventures. He left out some details, "Can't spoil the timeline, after all," but Elizabeth still got the idea of what the Doctor and Amy had been up to.

After he told her about the destruction of the Weeping Angels, she asked him, "Well, Doctor, that sounds like par for the course for you. All the stories tell of your harrowing adventures. How is it strange?"

The Doctor blushed, even though Elizabeth couldn't see it. "Well... It's Amy."

Elizabeth inwardly cheered, and she knew that Amy was feeling the same satisfaction. If this girl could unsettle the Doctor, she was a keeper.

"Oh, Doctor. What about Amy? She can't be causing you problems, or you would drop her back on Earth, no?"

"No, no, nothing like that. It's just... You know the stories about me, but they're probably written like a Desfludian Epic or something. I'm not some kind of perverted alien mastermind, picking up young Earth girls in my spaceship to bring to strange planets and seduce."

Elizabeth laughed at his description. "That's exactly how the stories go, actually."

"See! Always, always. I get lonely. My choices are usually between old people who treat me like a child even though I'm old enough to be their ancestor, young men who always want to find some attractive alien to seduce, and young women who, usually, just want adventure. I usually take the young women with me, since they're easier than tracking down some perverted youngster or dealing with crotchety grandparents."

"Okay, okay Doctor, I get it. No perversion. Ever."

"Right. Not to say I haven't thought about it... No! Never. I'm nine hundred and seven years old, and it simply doesn't work like that."

Elizabeth smiled, dragging herself along the handholds. "Sounds like a 'but' there, Doctor."

The Doctor sighed, but before he could respond, his sonic screwdriver started making a strange piercing noise that even Elizabeth could hear.

"That's it! See it, Liz? There's the crack."

Elizabeth couldn't see, because the Doctor was in her way. She pushed off her handhold to float past him, grabbing onto another handhold and staring at the crack in space-time not five feet from her.

"It's... it's strange, Doctor. Makes you a little nauseous, doesn't it?"

The Doctor drew himself alongside Elizabeth. "Yes, Liz, it does. Now, I'm going to work on closing it, so just keep talking. If I stop responding, pull me away from it. Okay?"

Elizabeth shook herself out of her daze and replied, "Okay Doctor. And if it's okay with you, I don't think I'm going to look at it."

"Quite alright," the Doctor responded. He set to work, pulling various gadgets out of the pockets of the space suit and letting them float near him. Occasionally one would float too far away, but even without seeing it, the Doctor would reach out and snag the offending item, placing it back within easy reach. "Just keep talking."

"So, Doctor, what were you saying? Something about 'it doesn't work like that but...'"

The Doctor laughed, intent on his work but still speaking conversationally, if a bit wistfully. "I've loved and lost, Liz. I've been married, had children, grandchildren. I thought I was too old for that anymore, to removed. My own species is gone, but..."

"But you're so close to Earth, and the humans. They feel like your own."

The Doctor laughed slightly as he waved the sonic screwdriver over a small blue capsule floating inches from the crack.

"Yeah, I suppose that's it. I mean, they don't act like Time Lords at all, which is a relief. But they look like Time Lords. They're fun and happy and attractive..."

"Doctor, are you talking about humans, or about Amy?"

The Doctor sighed. "Liz, I'm not sure if I'm talking about Amy, or Rose, or Jack. I never thought I'd be able to love again, and I keep coming close and it gets ripped away from me. How do I know it won't happen again? Sepulchasm, I know that it will happen again!"

"Who said it, Doctor? Old Earth poem, how did it go... Better to have loved and lost..."

"Tennyson, In Memoriam. It goes like this;

_I hold it true, whate'er befall;_  
_I feel it, when I sorrow most;_  
_'Tis better to have loved and lost_  
_Than never to have loved at all._

Tennyson was a good man, good poet. Met him once, only once. And maybe he was right but... Have you lost, Liz?"

"No, Doctor, I haven't. Not much royalty up here, hard to make the right alliances."

"Too true, Liz, too true. The loss... it hurts. Pain beyond regeneration, beyond a de-mat gun, beyond even the Piranha Cannons of Episfortax Seven. Pain of the heart is pain beyond imagining..."

Elizabeth was crying silently now, hearing the intensity of the Doctor's pain even through the scratchy audio of the Com-U.

"Doctor... I can't say I understand, because I don't. But if that's how bad the pain is, how good is the joy?"

The Doctor didn't respond.

"Doctor?"

Elizabeth turned towards him, seeing him silently floating, not even holding onto the ship. She drew herself towards him, careful to not even look at the crack. She grabbed his shoulder, pulling him away from the crack slightly.

"Doctor?"

The Doctor seemed to wake from a daze, turning his head to look at Elizabeth through their faceshields.

"Oh, sorry Liz. Not the crack, no, just me lost in thought. Must get back to work. Keep talking to me, Liz. Even painful conversation is better than what that crack would do to me."

"Okay Doctor... I asked you-"

"Yes, yes. And believe me, the joys of love... They are amazing. Not just the physical sensations, but the emotional connection, the psychic link. The simple knowledge that you have somebody that will support you at all costs. Even a friend, Liz, will turn on you if the reward is high enough. It takes real love for that kind of security."

"And isn't that just what you need, Doctor? Maybe Amy..."

The Doctor was still working, this time spreading a strange golden goop around the perimeter of the crack, careful not to let it touch the crack itself.

"Amy... Amy is wonderful, Liz, do not misunderstand me. But she is human. Fifty years of wonderful bliss, if it comes to that... Followed by a lifetime of pain. I don't know if it will be worth it, and I'm not sure I want to find out."

Elizabeth shook her head, before placing her hand on the Doctor's suited shoulder again. "Doctor, it seems like you're picking the losing choice because you're afraid to win. You're choosing pain over pain and joy; you're choosing pain for Amy instead of her own joy. Doesn't that seem a little selfish? Not to mention defeatist?"

"You know, Liz, you might just be the smartest monarch I've met. And coming from me, that means you've outranked most of the monarchy in the universe. Maybe you're right... Maybe Amy could be the one to really bring something good into my life."

Elizabeth, standing next to the Doctor, didn't respond. He turned towards her to see her staring into the crack, extending her hand towards the strange light.

"No!" the Doctor screamed, grabbing the young queen's waist and pulling her away from the crack. He drew one hand up to her visor and placed it in front of her eyes. Once the visual connection was broken, Elizabeth seemed to come back to her senses.

"Doctor? What happened?"

The Doctor sighed, grabbing onto a nearby handhold and gesturing for Elizabeth to do the same. "Remember what I said about what to do if I stop talking?"

"Pull you away, yes... Oh. It got me?"

"Yes, Liz, it did. You almost touched it."

"Well... thank you, Doctor. It seems I owe you my life. Although, be careful how you grab me... Don't want you thinking I'm Amy, after all."

The Doctor blushed, looking towards the crack. "Oh, I could never do that, Liz. Anyway, I don't think I'd grab Amy around the waist in that sort of situation."

Now it was Elizabeth's turn to blush, but she knew that Amy must be nova-red at that statement.

"Now, Liz, we're almost done here. Back away a few handholds, that's a good queen. To close the crack, unfortunately, I have to open it. What I've done with my various gadgets-"

Elizabeth interrupted him, saying, "Candy."

The Doctor continued as if he hadn't heard her. "- is to build a sort of a temporal wall around the crack, which should hopefully contain the effects."

"So just stay back, and I should be fine?"

"That's right Liz. Now, here we go!" With that, the Doctor waved his sonic screwdriver at the crack, causing it to stretch wider and glow brighter. Light began seeping through the crack, causing strange, mesmerizing patterns in the space around it. The Doctor was momentarily hypnotized before he shook off the effects, watching to make sure the crack closed properly.

Once the crack opened enough, he could see past the light into a swirling blue expanse. The clouds and twisting shapes inside reminded him of his youth.

"The Untempered Schism... a gap in the fabric of reality, into the Vortex... This is the same, but why? What causes this?"

While he was thinking, he didn't notice Elizabeth, mesmerized by the light emanating from the crack, let go of her handhold. Remembering his time at the Time Academy, the Doctor didn't notice Elizabeth reaching towards the crack until it was too late.

The light emanating from the crack took on a ghastly appearance, all red and angry. Elizabeth was reaching towards it, pushing her hand forward, into the light. The Doctor noticed the change in the light and jumped into action. He pushed off his handhold on the side of the ship and grabbed Liz by the shoulder. He tore her out of the light and threw her backwards, where she hit the side of the ship and got caught between two handholds.

The Doctor then brought out a small green marble. He pointed his sonic screwdriver at it, changing settings several times, and floated it over to the light. The crack immediately grabbed the marble and it was gone. With that last act, the crack slowly closed, the light fading away until all that was left was the hull of the ship and a small ring of golden goop.

The Doctor waved his sonic screwdriver over the goop a few times until he was satisfied that the crack was finally closed. When he was sure, he floated back towards Elizabeth and checked her over. The sonic screwdriver reported that she was fine, just sleeping, but the Doctor couldn't help but notice that her middle finger was missing from the last joint up. The suit was whole, but the end of the finger of the glove was definitely empty. He gently shook her awake.

"Liz... Liz, are you alright?"

Elizabeth slowly woke, looking at the Doctor. "Doctor? What happened? All I remember is light..."

"Liz, listen to me. What happened to your finger? Can you remember?"

Elizabeth looked down at her hand, feeling her middle finger. "What do you mean, Doctor? My hand's been like that since... Oh, for as long as I can remember. Longer, if you consider my... memory problems."

The Doctor sighed, realizing that she would never know what happened to her finger. It had been unwritten, and now it had never existed. "It's nothing, Liz. Let's get back to Amy."

The Doctor let Liz lead the way, watching her for any signs that the crack had affected more than her finger. When they reached the airlock, he turned to her.

"Thank you, Elizabeth, for helping me. I don't know what I would have done without you."

The pair entered the airlock. As they walked inside, they saw Amy gazing out through the viewing window. The outer doors then closed and the slight hiss of intruding air filled the silence.

Once the airlock had fully pressurized, the inner doors opened and Amy jumped to the pair, drawing them both into her embrace. "I'm so glad you're both alright! Is it closed, Doctor?"

"Yes, my dear, yes it is. Let's get back to the TARDIS."

=x=

Having bid goodbye to Queen Elizabeth the Tenth, the pair were safely ensconced in the TARDIS, ready to head off to the next crack. Well, Amy was ready, but the Doctor was nowhere to be found.

Amy wandered through the corridors of the TARDIS, looking and calling for the Doctor. She had heard the whole conversation over the Com-U, and while she wasn't going to tell him that, she still wanted to talk to him. Maybe kiss him again...

She passed too many doors to count, and opened almost as many. The bright orange door simply had a brick wall behind it, while the blindingly white door led into the back of the library. She found more bedrooms, the swimming pool, and even a small, well, shrine, to a rakish brown-haired man in a blue military-looking greatcoat.

"Seriously, the pictures and candles are weird enough, but what was with the hair?!"

Shaking her head, Amy continued onward until she saw the same door from her first trip to the library - the one that said Do Not Open. A little scared, she opened the door slowly, to reveal an ordinary looking bedroom. It was smaller than her own, and decorated in scarlet and orange. On the large bed she finally found the Doctor, curled into a ball and shaking slightly.

Amy quickly made her way to the bed, climbing onto it and pulling the Doctor into her arms. She held him as he quietly sobbed, obviously shaken.

"Doctor? Doctor are you alright? What's wrong?"

The Doctor simply sobbed for a few minutes more, before gradually quieting. Once he finished crying, he began to speak in a raspy voice.

"Amy... Liz almost died. She reached into the crack and it nearly swallowed her."

Amy gasped, realizing what that would have meant. "But... But Doctor, you saved her! She's fine, she's on Starship U.K."

The Doctor began shaking again as he spoke. "Amy... I barely saved her. She lost her finger, she didn't even remember ever having it. What would have happened if the crack unwrote her completely?"

Amy was silent, simply cradling the Doctor against her chest as he spoke.

"Queen Elizabeth the Tenth was the ruler of the United Kingdom from the year 2803 until 3364. She is credited with saving Britain from the solar flares and ensuring their collective peace until they returned to Earth in 3290. What would have happened if she hadn't been there to do that? If she never existed at all? It's not just Britain we're talking about... it's hundreds of years of written history undone. The universe would have imploded, unwritten itself. That could have been the end of time."

Amy finally understood what the Doctor was going through. He was shaken from almost changing time - not just almost losing a friend, but possibly dooming the universe as a whole. She held him in her arms, whispering comforting words in his ear until he drifted off, sleeping fretfully against her chest.

When Amy fell asleep as well, she was still holding the Doctor close to her, one hand reaching around to the back of his neck and the other hand's fingers laced with the his.

A/N: AWWWWWWW. I thought it was cute. If you didn't, you're probably reading the wrong story. Look for something with lasers. Anyway, here's where I definitely DON'T apologize. I know that I'll most likely get some people telling me that 'the Doctor would NEVER break down like that!'. And while that's your opinion, and I accept it, I still stick my tongue out at you. The Doctor may be a little shaken after that event because it isn't as simple as it seems. Think of this - the Doctor always tries to keep the timeline intact. "No, Rose, you can not touch your baby-self." "We have to save Queen Victoria!" "Why?" "Because she lives past today!" etc. Those are paraphrased, btw. And he succeeds. Bigtime. These cracks are worrisome, but he knows what, where and when they are, so he knows that he can save everything yet again. This time, it was even bigger than an intact timeline. Cutting out such a big piece of history could have destroyed everything. Even if it didn't, the Doctor knows that Liz 10 didn't die, that she lived past that day. That's gotta mess him up, seeing that almost happen. Maybe it happened the other times too, we just don't see it. The Doctor is strong, yes, but he's still alive. He still feels. Worry and guilt are part of that. Anyway, if you liked what I did, ignore this A/N, if you didn't, I'm sorry, but it fit so perfectly, and it's how I feel the Doctor would have responded, if only in secret. Either way, please, review! I love reviews, and I do my best to respond to every single one of them!

Which reminds me! I've allowed anonymous reviews because I know that not everyone has a account. But still, please people. I like to respond to reviews, and I've gotten into several awesome conversations with some of my readers from their reviews. It's not that hard to make an account, and the resulting conversation could, would, WILL be awesome. So please, sign your review if at all possible; I promise it'll be fun.


	5. Comfort and Courtship

A/N: Hi all, It's Evan again! This chapter and the next are a bit of an interlude. I knew, after the breakdown scene ending the last chapter, that I'd have to take at least one chapter to help the Doctor come to terms not just with his guilt, but especially with waking up being held by a beautiful redhead. That'll unsettle a man, it will. So, that's this chapter. The next chapter will be amazing, I promise you. This chapter is a bit of light fluff, along with some character expose and cool revelations. Mostly fluff. It's all innocent, but it had me sweating, my heart beating a touch faster, after I wrote it. Remember, Amy and the Doctor aren't exactly jumping into anything - they slept together because Amy comforted the Doctor, and now there's a bit of nice romance. Nothing more than a kiss and maybe a touch... But still innocent. If you're hoping for crazy adventure, you'll probably be disappointed by this chapter... but then again, if you're looking for crazy adventure, you're probably reading the wrong story anyway. This is all about the Doctor opening up, learning to love again. And especially, learning to love Amy. So enjoy this fluff, probably my favorite chapter to date. Until chapter six, that is... MUAHAHAHA.

Disclaimer: Me no ownee. Unterstibble?

Amy slowly came to from her groggy sleep, still clutching the Doctor. He was sleeping soundly, peacefully. Somehow during the night the pair had shifted in his bed. He was no longer laying on her chest - rather, he was laying on his back. Amy's left hand was wrapped tightly around his waist, and her right hand was trapped behind his back, her fingers just barely touching the hair at the nape of his neck. Her head was resting comfortably on the Doctor's chest, and she could feel his double heartbeat thumping slowly.

The Doctor was drawing comfort from Amy's presence. His legs were wrapped around her own, and his hands... Well. His hands had somehow found their place around Amy's back, resting comfortably on her backside. Amy giggled softly as his right hand clenched in his sleep, squeezing her cheek.

The Doctor, for his part, was resting more soundly than he had in a very long time. He heard the soft tones of musical laughter, and quickly woke up. His eyes shot open, and nothing seemed amiss. But the laughter continued, and he looked down to his chest.

And there, looking back at him, was Amelia Pond. He quickly took stock of the situation. 'Okay... We're clothed, legs entangled... quite nice... her hands are around my back, that might be painful. My hands... oh. Oh... This is quite nice... No!'

The Doctor removed his hands as if he'd been burned, throwing the offending limbs to either side. He quickly began stammerinc apologies before Amy shushed him.

"Doctor, please. Do I look offended? You were asleep, and you... wandered..." Amy laughed, trying to comfort him but completely amused by the situation. "I surely didn't mind, and I don't think you did either."

The Doctor blushed, before thinking back to why, exactly, Amy was in his bed in the morning. With his thoughts drifting back to the dark night before, his expression tightened and he tried to roll away from the beautiful young woman on top of him.

Unfortunately, rolling away from somebody pressing down on you doesn't work too well. The pair ended up on their sides, Amy still wrapped around the Doctor from head to toe. The Doctor had a bewildered look on his face, realizing he was trapped.

Amy simply laughed once more. "Doctor, please. I'm here for you, no matter what you need. Right now, I think you need someone to hold you, and I'm quite comfortable doing just that. However, I think we need to roll again." With that, Amy released the Doctor and rolled onto her back. Before he could pull away, however, she grabbed him again and dragged him to her.

She placed his head on her chest with one hand resting comfortably in his hair and the other tracing lazy circles down his back. The Doctor blushed when he realized exactly where his head was, but the position definitely served to take his mind off of other things.

Carefully, slowly, he raised his hands off of the bed. He brought one up to Amy's shoulder, placing it gently along her collarbone. Amy shivered as his hand brushed her skin, but then he moved his other hand.

The Doctor smirked a bit, deciding to surprise Amy. He knew she wouldn't be offended, after her physical advances, and he quite liked the position he had woken up in. With an evil smirk, the Doctor wiggled his hand under Amy's back, sliding it down until he was cupping her left cheek.

Amy squeaked at the sudden connection, before catching herself and looking down at the Doctor. "That was mean, Doctor."

The Doctor was openly smiling now, with just a hint of a blush on his cheeks. "Oh? You squeak when I'm mean to you?"

Amy tightened her hand in the Doctor's hair, pulling his head up slightly from her chest. As she was doing this, she definitely took note of the slight moan that escaped his mouth. 'Side note... hair. I love it, he likes me to pull it... Really have to do that again.'

When she had the Doctor at roughly eye level, Amy spoke to him in a voice devoid of all but the smallest hint of laughter. "Doctor, I do not squeak. I may giggle, I may blush, but I do not squeak."

The Doctor smirked, and Amy tried to prepare herself. Even with that however, when he took a firm grip on her ass and just pulled her up into him... Amy squeaked again.

"Amelia, my sweet, I think you may be mistaken."

Amy was not one to be shown up. Her left hand was still tangled in the Doctor's hair, but she took the right and, a little more than gently, scratched down the Doctor's back.

The Doctor arched his back, trying to escape her nails and yet yearning for them. He groaned again, this time an animalistic sound of pure passion. His movement pressed his body into Amy's, and her breath sped up as he was molded against her lithe frame.

The Doctor whispered a few words in a lilting, musical language. Amy was surprised when the TARDIS didn't translate them for her, so she asked him about it.

"Doctor? What language was that? Why didn't the TARDIS translate?"

The Doctor, still recovering frm the feel of her nails on his back, looked into her eyes. "The TARDIS won't translate Gallifreyan... it was an order during the war, to protect against spies. That, especially... that was Old High Gallifreyan, the language of the ancient Time Lords, the language developed by Rassilon himself."

Amy gasped slightly, before her wondering led her to ask, "And... Doctor, what did you say?" Amy smirked, waiting for his response.

"Well," he started, his cheeks slowly turning red. "The closest translation would be something like... "You bitch, you make me hotter than ten thousand novae." It was a common saying during courtship on Gallifrey."

Amy felt her blood race at his profanity, not to mention the sentiments he was expressing. She pushed that to the side for now though, to ask a question that was burning at her. "Well... wasn't that what that woman, River Song wrote to you in?"

The Doctor's face contorted in disgust, and he drew his hand out from behind Amy to wave it in the air as he answered. Amy pouted at the loss of sensation.

"No, no. Well, yes, technically. But the script she used was called... hmm." He said a few syllables in that same musical language, but they came out somewhat harsher, more guttaral than his previous words. "I think the closest translation would be "Garbage Writing". It's a corrupted form of the script, used by Gallifreyans who learned some of the old language but didn't get far enough in the Time Lord Academy to learn the true script."

Amy nodded, secretly thrilled to learn more about Gallifrey and the Doctor's life there. She smiled and held him tighter, drawing him up her body. Feeling this, the Doctor helped, scooting himself up until he rested his head on her shoulder.

After a few moments of comfortable silence, the Doctor decided on a change, and a bit of a demonstration. After all their playful flirting, he was feeling a little bit frisky, and decided to show Amy some of what being a 900 year old Time Lord meant.

"Amy, hold onto me. We're going to have some fun."

Amy was puzzled, but trusted the Doctor, her raggedy Doctor. She laced her one arm around his neck, and held onto his shirt with the other hand. The Doctor groaned as she grabbed hold, her nails scraping his back again, lighter and more sensuous than before. She held on, and the Doctor tensed before pressing down onto the bed with his elbows.

The pair was launched several feet in the air as the Doctor rolled them around. They dropped gently to the bed, Amy landing on the Doctor and bumping, gently, against him. She gasped, looking at him with wide eyes.

"How? What? How did you do that?"

The Time Lord grinned, placing one of his hands back onto her ass and squeezing. She squeaked, but that quickly turned into a low, throaty moan as he wound the fingers of his other hand through her long red tresses. Somehow, he managed to avoid all the knots from the night before, and he didn't even pull her hair! Amy found herself thinking about what else he could do with his fingers before she stopped herself, blushing brightly and burying her head into the crook of his neck.

The Doctor's breath hitched as her hot breath traced a path up the side of his neck and around his earlobe, but he pulled himself together to answer her questions. "Time Lord, Amy. My muscles, even with the slight loss from regeneration, have been building up and firming for hundreds of years. Not to mention my slight control over time, allowing us to land gently, rather than bouncing right off the bed!"

Amy giggled into the Doctor's neck and felt his hearts speed up. She left her hand tied up in his hair, but moved her right hand to a position inbetween their chests, feeling his hearts speed up, then slow, gaining rhythm to match her own single beat.

"Doctor... does this mean we're courting, now?"

The Doctor was taken aback, gaping at her seemingly innocent question. Amy laughed at his open mouth, before tracing a circle around his lips with her tongue.

The Doctor was knocked out of his daze by the path of fire she was tracing around his open lips. Without thinking, he quickly moved his head and closed his mouth, trapping her tongue inside. He moved his tongue, tracing his own tongue down the length of hers.

Amy was utterly destroyed by the sensual kiss. Every single nerve ending in her mouth was on fire, and the fire was quickly spreading down her body. All too soon, the Doctor opened his mouth, releasing her tongue and blushing embarrassedly at her.

Amy recovered enough to gasp out, "Doctor... what... what was... that?"

The Doctor smiled, partly happily and partly in shame. "That, sweet Amelia, was a Gallifreyan kiss."

Still trying to control her breath and her wild heartbeat, Amy looked him in the eye and smirked slightly. "You've had plenty of practice, haven't you?"

The Doctor's face turned beet red, his eyes dropping to her mouth before snapping back up to meet her eyes. "Well.. No, actually. Only once. Believe it or not, it's something we're born knowing."

Amy, stunned, couldn't even manage to speak.

"And to answer your earlier question, sweet, dear Amelia Pond, no, we can not currently be courting."

Amy's ecstacy quickly turned to cold dread, and she only managed to avoid sobbing enough to say one word.

"Why?"

The Doctor looked sadly at her. "Not that I don't want to, Amy. And I don't believe I've misread that you want to as well. But on Gallifrey... it's a trip to the Death Zone, effectively a death sentence, for any who attempt to court someone who is already betrothed."

Amy puzzled out his words in her head. "So... we can't... because..."

"Because of Rory, yes, my dear. I don't mean to cause you any more pain, but if you really, truly want me, for the rest of your life and quite possibly for the rest of my own long life, you have to break it off with him. The culture may not exist anymore, but I still follow the laws."

Amy yawned, tired from the emotional exhaustion. "Doctor, can we make a special trip tomorrow? To Leadworth?"

The Doctor's smile was brighter than she had ever seen, truly the face of great joy. "While I do feel bad for Rory, my dear, nothing would make me happier. Nothing at all."

"Thank you, Doctor. I think I'll go to sleep now, if you'll hold me."

The Doctor grinned, tightening his grip on the young woman in his arms. "I take back my last statement, my heart. You just made me a very happy man indeed."

Half-asleep, Amy just snuggled into the Doctor's embrace further, pressing her cheek against his and feeling his arms wrap around her.

A/N: IF YOU DIDN'T SAY "AWWWWWWW" AT LEAST ONCE THAT CHAPTER, GO SOMEWHERE ELSE. YOU CLEARLY HAVE NO SOUL. Ahem. Sorry about that, Squiggy the Demon Lord of the Seventh Circle tries to get out sometimes. He's getting me to write this to find the readers with the most romantic souls, so that when he devours mine he can devour all yours too. And if you couldn't tell, I'm a bit sleep deprived. Comes with the territory. So, yes. Awwwwwww. I thought that chapter was alternatively: SUPER cute, somehow innocently steamy, and surprisingly informative. Often switching between the three very quickly. I received both a compliment and a complaint about my repeated use of the word "dear", so in this chapter I offered a compromise. I didn't use "dear" quite so much, but I also experimented with a few extra pet names for the lovely Amelia Pond. Rory is taken care of, River is disregarded, it's just Amy and the Doctor. Or is it? What's the next wrench in the works? Another crack? Rose come back from Pete's World? A NAKED CAPTAIN JACK HARKNESS?!?! Nah, just Amy having to deal with Rory and her guilt at (literally) leaving him at the altar. More comforting? MAYBE! Then, after that chapter, we hit up the next crack. I know what/when/where they all are, and they'll all be familiar scenes (except, really, one), but I haven't yet decided which one will be the next one. So yes, I hope you enjoyed, and please review. Toodlez!


	6. Reflection and Rory

A/N - This is completely unbetaed, not even self-betaed. If you see any glaring errors, hit me a review and I'll fix them. Other than, that enjoy. In this chapter, surprises, fun, references to fun surprises, and Rory gets the shaft. Seriously, I hate Rory. I had to rewrite his scene like six times to write out: murder, fire, pain, torture, Amy doing all of those things to him, Amy being MUCH too mean for her character, Amy being MUCH too cruel for her character, and more! Seriously, see if you can tell how much I hate Rory from the tone during his scene. I think it might be a little bit TOO obvious, but I really can't done it down any more. I tried, I really did. Oh well. After this chapter, no more unless they need timecrack-food, so it should be alright. I hope you enjoy it, and please, Read and Review!

Disclaimer: I don't own the Awesome Eleventh Doctor, who I would love to own; I don't own the Vivacious Amelia Pond, who I would die to own; I don't own the snivelling wimp Rory, who I wouldn't even take for free. Seriously, DocWho writers, you can have him. Just keep him off the show!

The Doctor slowly came to his senses, smelling the unique scent of Amelia Pond in his Gallifreyan nose. The pair had shifted overnight, no longer Amy lying on the Doctor's chest. Instead, they were each on their sides, Amy curled in the Doctor's embrace with her back - and her delightful ass - pressed up against his front.

The Doctor gently disengaged himself from the wonderful embrace, stretching his arms above his head. He rolled over, thinking that maybe a nice breakfast in bed was in order for the gorgeous Amelia Pond.

When he rolled over and opened his eyes, however, he was greeted with a very strange sight. Laying in the Doctor's bed was Captain Jack Harkness, completely naked. Jack was laying on his side with one hand propping up his head, looking the Doctor straight in the eye.

"Morning, Doctor. New body? I like it."

Half-asleep, having just turned from the sight of a gorgeous redhead to a completely naked, almost-as-gorgeous brown-haired man, the Doctor took the first action that came to his mind.

He screamed like a little girl.

The Doctor's scream, naturally, woke Amy, who had been sleeping quite comfortably. She rolled over, groggy and ready to scold him, when her eyes drifted past his screaming form. She saw a strange man. She saw a strange man in the Doctor's bed. With the Doctor and herself. Naked.

Amy's brain came to a screeching halt as the Doctor continued screaming. When Jack noticed her, however, his comment put her brain into overdrive.

"Well, well, Doctor. I see you're... ahem. Busy. I'll be out in the control room once you've... finished."

Amy's mind, so suddenly woken, frozen, and thawed, covered every single possibility she could comprehend. 'Oh my god. Is the Doctor gay?! Is he just playing with me? Does he expect some sort of... threesome...? Not that that guy isn't handsome... Definitely not that. But still! And how did he get in here? Did he break in? No, this is the TARDIS. So the Doctor brought him here? Why is the Doctor screaming?'

Indeed, the Doctor was still screaming, without having taken a breath, as Jack calmly walked, well, strutted out of the bedroom. Naked.

Amy scooted over to the Doctor, putting an arm over her shoulders. She knew that anger was probably the right emotion, but since the Doctor was obviously surprised, he wasn't her target. She gently shook him, saying, "Doctor?"

The Doctor didn't even seem to notice, still screaming. Rather than repeating the experience of the library, and rapidly developing a headache, Amy jumped straight to the big guns.

She pulled the Doctor to her, onto his back and moved onto his chest. Moving up to put their faces level, Amy began tracing her hands up the Doctor's sides. His screaming faltered, then stopped. His mouth closed, and his eyes met Amy's.

Then she kissed him. She kissed him with all her might, running her nails down his arms and tangling their legs together. The Doctor responded, groaning into her mouth and wrapping his arms around her. He pulled her closer as she kissed him, pressing their bodies together.

When they pulled apart, both breathing heavily, Amy looked the Doctor in the eyes. "Doctor, I kissed you because I wanted to, because we're in bed together and because it felt right. I kissed you to let you know that I'm not mad at you, too. But... Doctor... WHO THE HELL WAS THAT?!"

The Doctor smiled at her first statement, then froze when she yelled at him. He sighed, still holding her gaze.

"Amy... That was... is, Captain Jack Harkness. I don't know how he got in the TARDIS, although I intend to find out. I don't know why he was naked, although I have a strong suspicion. I screamed because, well..."

Amy frowned at the Doctor. "Well what?"

The Doctor blushed and closed his eyes. "I woke up holding you, Amy. I don't think I've ever felt so comfortable in my life. And I went from that comfort to seeing Jack - not only seeing him naked, which was a shock, but seeing him period. Last I saw, he was in a bar on Ameletax IX. Now, as much as I would rather stay here and hold you for the day, we need to go and get some answers."

Amy agreed, and the pair quickly got up, sharing a few chaste kisses, and went out to the control room hand in hand. When they got there, Jack was leaning against the railing, looking into the Time Rotor.

"Well, at least you're dressed," said the Doctor, smiling at Jack. And indeed, Jack had found his clothing somewhere, right down to his greatcoat.

"I could say the same to you, Doctor. And aren't you going to introduce me to your lady friend?"

The Doctor grimaced, smelling Jack's fifty-first century pheromones in the air. "I wasn't planning on it, actually. But, since you mention it... Captain Jack Harkness, meet miss Amelia Pond. Amy, Jack. We go back."

"We go way back," said Jack, winking at Amy.

The Doctor nearly growled, warning Jack, "Don't you dare."

Amy looked at the Doctor, slightly afraid at his tone, but she wasn't about to stand down. She stepped up to Jack and extended her hand, saying, "Nice to meet you, Captain Jack Harkness. I'm Amy, Amy Pond."

When Jack reached out to shake her hand, she took it, shook it once, and then dug her nails into his flesh, causing him to yelp and nearly drop to his knees.

"And if I ever find you interrupting my time with the Doctor again, I will break every bone in your body."

The Doctor roared with laughter, stepping forward to put his arm around Amy. "Jack, nice to see you met Amy. I do believe that you two will get along very nicely."

Amy, all sweetness now, released Jack's hand. "So, Captain, how did you come to be here? Not to mention, naked in bed with us?"

The Doctor blushed at Jack's look. "Here, not quite positive, but I can try to explain. In bed... well, that's a funny story. How about a cuppa?"

The Doctor, holding Amy around her waist, headed towards the kitchen of the TARDIS. Jack followed, watching with interest as the Doctor's hand strayed lower and lower on Amy's back, finally resting firmly on her shapely derriere. Jack had to hold back his giggling, and managed until they reached the kitchen and he collapsed into a chair, sniggering.

The Doctor simply sighed and waved for Jack to get on with it.

Jack controlled his giggling, for the most part, and started explaining. "So, here's the deal. Remember Alonzo?"

The Doctor nodded, before turning to Amy. "Long story. Met him once, he was lonely, Jack isn't picky, match made."

"Yeah, well, that lasted all of a day. Then, figuring that I'm in the middle of the fifty-first century, I start wandering around, hitching rides here and there, looking for Grey."

The Doctor's face grew sad, remembering Jack talk of his long-lost brother. "Did you find him, Jack? Or any word?"

Jack's face brightened. "I found hope, Doctor. Hope and sadness. I found his grave."

"Jack, I'm-"

"Doctor, it's alright. Do you know what his grave said? It said, 'You were always there for me, Jack. Time travel confuses me, but you told me that you had already seen this, so just know - we do find each other.'"

The Doctor was stunned. "Really?!" he exclaimed, almost jumping from the table in excitement.

"Really, Doctor. So I know I find him sometime, and I get to spend time with him. I've got plenty of time, so I'm not exactly hurrying to find him. It'll work, eventually."

"Wait, wait. I'm confused. Who is Grey?" asked Amy, sitting next to the Doctor.

Jack looked at her, almost surprised by her presence. "Sorry, Amy. Got lost. Grey is my brother. There was an attack... and... and I lost him. I just kept running and he wasn't there. But now I have hope."

The Doctor reached over the table and put his hand on Jack's shoulder. He gave it a reassuring squeeze, saying, "Hope is the best thing we can have, Jack. For instance, right now I'm hoping that Amy will sleep in my bed again tonight. Good things come to those who hope."

Amy, blushing brightly, slapped the Doctor, before putting her arms around him and whispering in his ear. "Just so you know, Doctor, I usually sleep in the nude."

The Doctor's eyes unfocused, and his face took on a dreamy quality, like he was imagining some very nice things. Which, considering the situation, he most likely was. Amy smacked him again, bringing him to reality. Jack laughed before continuing.

"So, anyway, I found the grave, cried a bit, laughed a bit, and then got really drunk. You see... I was drinking, and there was this... man? Woman? Alien, anyway. They gave me this pill, to prevent my sperm reaching their... ovus sacks? Or something. And at some point, I threw up, the pill was intact, it landed on my vortex manipulator... And here I am. I think I remember something about a towel too, not sure."

Amy laughed. "You threw up," she asked.

Jack looked at her strangely, before explaining. "Someone turned on the lights. I'm not picky, but even I have standards, and a giant... fish... lizard... thing... is too far out for me. Thus, vomit."

The Doctor thought for a moment, before sighing. "Jack, were you, by chance, trying to hitch a ride?"

Jack thought for a minute, trying to remmeber. "Hmm... it's all a little fuzzy, Doctor. Yeah, I think I was. The ship's name was really pretentions, too. Gold something? Maybe Blood... no... something about..."

"Heart of Gold?"

"That's it," replied Jack. "Why? Is it important?"

"What it means, Jack, is that somebody is playing a very large joke on us, on me in particular. Douglas Adams was either a genius or an idiot, I'm not sure which."

"Wait a minute... Adams," Amy said, thinking hard. "Douglas Adams, was he an author? I read that book when I was younger! _Hitchhiker's Guide_, right?"

The Doctor sighed again. "Yes, Amelia. _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_. Like I said, either a genius or an idiot, and I don't know which. Mice are the only Earth animal that doesn't have a sentient, talking analogue in the entire universe. Nobody knows why. And Magrathea... don't even get me started."

Amy was intrigued now, so she got the Doctor started. "What about Magrathea, Doctor? Lost to time?"

The Doctor looked at her strangely. "Lost to time, indeed. Magrathea is what my people called Gallifrey, back in the Dark Times. Magrathea was the Pythian's name for the planet. As far as I can tell, Douglas Adams is completely human, with no connection to the outside universe, but he knows things no human could ever know! And every time I try to go visit him, pick his brain, the TARDIS won't let me!"

Amy and Jack shared a look before Jack spoke up. "So you're Douglas Adams then, Doctor?"

The Doctor looked at him quizzically. "Of course no-"

"Yep," Amy replied. "Completely obvious. You had better get writing, then, Doctor. Don't want to disappoint your soon-to-be-fans."

The Doctor sighed, realizing the possibility, no matter how absurd.

"Nah, you don't have to write, Doctor. Just pick up a copy and go back to give it to your editor. There, done."

The Doctor sighed, slumping until his head rested on the table. Amy and Jack shared a laugh at his expense, and he sighed again.

When their laughter subsided, Jack continued. "So, yeah. In the control room, obviously the TARDIS. No Doctor. So I figured I'd wander a bit. I passed some fair strange rooms. Is that really a portal to Belgium, Doctor?"

The Doctor smiled and said, "Nope. Brick wall. I just like the sign."

Amy laughed and waved for Jack to continue. "So, yeah. Finally, I find this door that just has two hearts on it. Naturally, I have to check it out! So I sneak in, and who do I spy, but someone I assume is the Doctor, cuddled up with a very pretty redhead."

Amy blushed, but she thought that maybe annoyance was more appropriate at this point.

Jack continued, "So, naturally, I stripped down, leaving my clothes in the hall for easy access, just in case this strange man isn't the Doctor. And I slip into bed, just waiting. I didn't have to wait long, luckily. You really do have great timing, Doctor."

The Doctor sighed again, as Jack laughed and Amy stared down the handsome immortal.

"Okay, Captain. It's funny now, yes. But hear me. The only one naked in the Doctor's bed, or within eyesight of him, from now on, is me. Got it?"

Jack sobered up, seeing the absolute seriousness on Amy's face. "Yes ma'am! Really, Doctor, you've got a good one here. Feisty. And really, you didn't make ginger this regeneration, but at least you've got one to keep you in line!"

The Doctor moaned, pulling at his long hair. "I know! Is it too much to ask? I get all these tries, and can't hit it once. Amy's born, one try, and wham! Ginger!"

"Hey!" Amy yelled. "I'm right here!"

The Doctor took her hand, looking her straight in the eyes. "No insult meant, my sweet Amelia. I would have loved to be ginger is all."

Jack laughed again, before turning semi-serious. "So, Doctor. I'm here now. Going to drop me off somewhere, or mind if I tag along for a bit?"

The Doctor looked at Amy, who shrugged. "Jack, I'd love that. But seriously though, no more naked?"

"Doctor, you know I can't guarantee that. But, in the interest of not having to see if I can grow back my manhood, not in your bed. Or your room," Jack added, seeing Amy's glare. "Promise."

The Doctor smiled. "Welcome back, Jack."

Jack leaned back in his chair and said, "Well, where to, Doctor?"

The Doctor looked at Amy, who was looking down at her clenched hands. "You don't have to, Amelia. Only when you're ready."

Amy sighed before lifting her gaze, passing over Jack's concerned face to look into the Doctor's deep eyes. "No, it's today, Doctor. It's the only thing holding us back, and it's what I want. I just wish it was easier."

"Only if-"

"Doctor, are you trying to talk me out of it?" Amy asked. "Because I'm sure, and you aren't driving yet."

The Doctor quickly rushed out to the control room, and very shortly, the sounds of the TARDIS lifting off could be heard throughout her corridors. Jack looked at Amy quizzically, not quite willing to ask.

"Long story, Captain. Have to break up with my fiance."

Jack laughed. "Oh, if I had ten quid for every time I had to do that... Well, I'd be broke. Never let it get that far, myself. Mind if I ask why, though?"

Amy sighed, before speaking rather quickly. "I ran away with the Doctor the night before my wedding, and now I'm falling in love with him, and I was just settling for Rory anyway since I didn't think the Doctor was coming back, so I'd much rather do it now than after I go through with the foolishness of a marriage."

Jack frowned, working through her words. "Wow. You really have to tell me the long version."

Amy sighed, then giggled. "Well, we've got time. So I was seven years old, scared of the crack in my wall..."

=x=

The Doctor succeeded in gently putting the TARDIS down, precisely in Amy's bedroom in Leadworth, five minutes after they had left the second time. Which was five minutes after they left the first time.

He made his way to the kitchen, hearing Jack roaring with laughter. As he crossed the threshold, he caught the tail end of Amy's story.

"And it was so nice, you know? Being held like that. And I was so comfortable. Then you ruined it all! Seriously, I was sound asleep, then all I hear is the Doctor screeching!"

"Hey! I do not screech! That was a manly yell!"

Jack was almost falling out of his chair with laughter. "Doctor, really. It was more of a screech."

The Doctor harrumphed before turning to Amy. "Ms. Pond, we have arrived."

Amy quickly turned serious, before standing up. "Well, that's my cue. Boys, I'll be back. Don't blow up the TARDIS while I'm gone, please?"

The Doctor stepped forward, cupping her chin in his hand. "Do you want me to go with you?"

"No, Doctor. This is something I have to do on my own, or I'll never forgive myself."

The Doctor gathered her into a hug, whispering in her ear, "You were there for me, Amelia Pond. I'll be here for you."

Amy smiled before walking out of the kitchen, heading out for a late-night rendezvous with Rory. She walked through the TARDIS, patted the center console, and walked out the doors into her bedroom. She left her room and went downstairs to the kitchen, where her phone was.

Picking up the phone, she sighed before dialing Rory's number. He picked up, sounding slightly drunk and more than a little groggy. "He- Hello?"

"Rory? It's Amy. Can I come over? We need to talk,"

Rory answered, "Bad luck... night before..."

Amy sighed. "Rory, I'm coming over. I don't want to do this over the phone." With that, she hung up the phone, grabbed a heavy jacket from the coatrack, and left her house. She looked wistfully at the rebuilt shed, and started walking towards Leadworth proper.

On the walk, she tried to prepare herself for the inevitable crying. She had never really been all that attracted to Rory. He wasn't very smart, and intelligence was something that Amy had always prized. He wasn't brave, or stubborn, and Amy always got her way. In short, Rory just wasn't any fun. There was no excitement, no challenge. She settled for him though, because she thought the Doctor was gone for good. In Leadworth, it was either Rory or Jeff, and Jeff had a bit of an... unhealthy obsession. Amy definitely found it strange.

She reached Rory's house quick enough, Leadworth being small enough to walk across in twenty minutes, ten at a brisk pace. She knocked on the door, and Rory opened it almost immediately, dressed in only his boxers and looking like he had shed tears already.

Amy sighed, looking at his pale, skinny frame in disgust. "Rory, please. Get dressed."

Whimpering, Rory ran into his bedroom, emerging very quickly in sweats and a jumper. Amy led him into his living room, where she sat in the recliner and he perched nervously on the couch.

"Rory... I don't know how to do this."

Rory immediately broke down, sobbing into his arms. He tried to speak, but Amy could only make out broken pieces in between the sobs. "Leaving... night before... of course... Doctor..."

Amy sighed, moving to the couch next to him. Against her better judgement, she took Rory in her arms, holding him and trying to soothe him. "Shhh... Rory... I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Rory."

In between his pitiful moans and the sobs that wracked his body, Rory moved his hands from in front of her eyes to Amy's shoulders, holding tightly to her.

"Shh... Listen, Rory, we have to talk. Please, calm down."

Rory's sobs increased, but his hands started drifting downwards, towards her chest. Amy noticed this, and cursed.

"Oh bloody hell! Of course, you lecherous sod!" Amy pushed Rory backwards before standing up, pacing the length of his living room as she ranted at him. "Of course. You could never understand that I wanted to wait 'til marriage, could you? Always crying, trying to use your tears to get into my knickers!"

Rory's cries increased in volume, and he nearly collapsed to the floor. Amy looked at him sadly, but was too incensed by his attempted groping to care all that much.

"Oh, stop this. You knew that this would never work! I told you that when you tricked me into accepting your ring! Then your mother took over, dragging me along into preparations for some sham wedding that I didn't want any part of! You even said it yourself, during one of your pity parties! 'Oh, Amy, you're only with me because I'm the only guy in Leadworth.'"

Amy looked at Rory's sobbing form, curled up on the floor of his living room.

"I'm sorry Rory, but this alone shows me that we couldn't ever be together. You can't even talk to me like a man, instead crying like a baby. Goodbye, Rory." With that, Amy left his house, storming back to her own, her bedroom, and her Doctor.

Amy stopped dead in her tracks, nearly halfway to her house. Her Doctor? Where did that come from? Shaking off the confusing thoughts, she continued home, now feeling bad about how she had treated her ex-fiance. 'I could have been nicer... But after that stunt he pulled, I was just so pissed! I was expecting it though, so why am I mad at him? Should I go back... NO!'

Finally, Amy reached her house and went up to her bedroom. She entered the TARDIS to find the Doctor and Jack in the control room. As she walked in, she heard the Doctor talking. Just the sound of his voice made her feel better.

"Oh, Jack, Freud would have had a field day with you. Strange guy, that Freud. I met him once, we had a very awkward conversation when he saw my screwdriver," the Doctor was saying when he noticed Amy, flushed and looking mad enough to spit.

"Amy? Amelia? Are you okay? You haven't exactly been gone long."

Amy sighed, walking over to the Doctor. She turned the chair he was sitting in and plopped down onto his lap.

"Doctor, please. I just broke his heart, and none too nicely. Just, please, hold me."

The Doctor was speechless. She was sitting in his lap! He quickly quelled his growing reaction and wrapped his arms around her.

"Please, Doctor, can we just go to bed? I'm tired, and all I want to do is sleep in your arms."

The Doctor looked down at her closed eyes fondly, before laying a soft kiss onto the tip of her nose. "Of course, Amelia. Let's go to bed."

With that, the Doctor stood, still cradling Amy's tired form in his arms. He carried her to his bedroom and they cuddled close as she drifted to sleep.

Jack, still in the control room, spoke out, "Ummm. TARDIS? Do you think you could point me to a spare bedroom?"

The walls of the TARDIS shifted and a door appeared on one side of the control room. Jack walked to it and opened it, finding the most blindingly pink room he had ever seen. "Oh, very funny girl. I'll get you in the morning. Keep a watch over them, yeah?"

Somehow, Jack knew that the TARDIS agreed, and was laughing at him. He shook his head, stripped down, and went to bed under the pink canopy.

A/N - SURPRISE! Some references and jokes in this chapter come from suggestions made by Rich Biggums; some come from various dredgings I pulled from my mind while talking to the likes of JuliaAurelia, MissMattSmith, Look-Me-Up, and clairelune. Thank you all for your help; I hope you enjoyed the chapter and your shout out! I probably won't do this again, this shoutout type thing. So enjoy it, and thank all of you for your help! Please review! I haven't started on Chapter 7 yet, so I need some feedback before Squiggy will allow me to! Thanks again, and toodlez; Evan.


	7. Surprise!

A/N: Sorry for the delay, ladies, gentlemen, and Daleks. I really had a hard time getting this chapter out. It wasn't quite Writer's Block, really the opposite. I had plenty of ideas, all sketched out, but each one of them had a problem or issue that made it less than perfect. I just couldn't decide which one to go with! Finally, this came to me, and just let me say... Wow. This surprised me amazingly. Anyway; it's a rather short chapter, because I hit a perfect stopping point, but I promise you, I'm already working on Ch.8. That one will be hell to finish, I'm sure, just because it's so epic. Still, shouldn't be too long! I hope you enjoy this; Review please!

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who! Neither does Squiggy!

When Jack woke after a long sleep, he rummaged around the all-too-pink room to find his pants and made his way to the console room. When he got there, he found the Doctor and Amy involved in some playful banter as the Doctor was under the floor apparently welding something.

"Oh, so you think I'll just bend over backwards for you, do you?" Amy was asking.

"No, no, just- Jack! Hey there Captain Jack, how are you?"

Jack smiled, leaning back against the railing around the console. "Pretty good, Doctor. Amy, gorgeous as always. So, what's on the agenda? Saving the planet?"

The Doctor looked at Amy, before cutting off his torch and climbing up from underneath the raised floor. He brushed himself off and climbed up to the console, settling next to Amy against a relatively button-free portion.

"Well, Jack. Here's the deal. You know the Rift in Cardiff, right? It's kind of a permanent hole in space-time."

"Right. We can't fix it, since it isn't really broken."

Amy looked at the two men strangely. "What? A hole, in Cardiff?"

The Doctor smiled, looping his arm around her shoulders. "It's complicated. Cardiff gets a lot of accidental travellers, in short."

Amy laughed, saying, "I knew that city was hiding something!"

Jack looked at her strangely before motioning for the Doctor to continue.

"Well, basically, think of that as the door in the wall. We know it's there, it's built into the wall, no problem. Now, what we've been tracking down is these cracks. They're a lot like the Rift, but they shouldn't be there. Something, some big temporal explosion, is causing these cracks all over space and time. We've been closing the ones that I can figure out before we go deal with the big issue."

"What's the big issue, though? What could be this big to reach out and crack the walls? Something in the void?"

The Doctor frowned, and Amy was a bit lost. She considered speaking up, but just settled back into the Doctor's embrace, listening.

"Some of the things we've heard... the first crack, something escaped through it. Amy and I got rid of it, but it spoke... The Pandorica will open..."

Amy shivered, remembering Prisoner Zero living in her house. The Doctor's arm around her tightened, and he leaned his head to rest on hers. Amy's breath caught at the simple affection in the gesture. She snaked her arm in between their merged bodies, wrapping it firmly around the Doctor's waist.

"The Pandorica is a fairy tale, though. Literally. Time sensitive races tell it as a bed time story to their kids these days," Jack said. He started pacing around the center console. "In the Time Agency, there was a running joke that The Pandorica will get you if you turned in your reports late, or something like that."

Amy was a bit too lost to stay quiet at this point. "So what does the bloody story say?"

The Doctor and Jack were broken out of their respective musings and rantings. They looked at the feisty redhead sheepishly, before the Doctor waved to Jack.

"You explain. I have to do some research," the Doctor said, dropping a kiss on Amy's temple and disappearing into the corridors of the TARDIS.

Amy sighed, but settled against the console, looking at Jack pointedly.

"Okay, okay. So, here's the thing. Some races are time sensitive, yeah? Some exceptional humans get it, but there are entire races that are time sensitive, like the Time Lords."

"So they can travel in time?"

"No, no, anyone can travel in time with some help, like the TARDIS. Sometimes, big things happen in time. And these races can tell. Like the Time War; has he mentioned that to you?"

"No... the Time War?"

Jack sighed before continuing. "I can't say. He'll have to explain it to you. Long story short, big war, basically never happened. When it ended, it was literally sealed away in time. It happened, but it was sealed away so long ago by our standards that only the time-sensitive races know about it or even remember the stories. Time-locked, so even the Doctor can't travel to it."

Amy nodded, understanding at least in part. What she didn't quite get was the faraway sadness in Jack's eyes, but she didn't interrupt.

"The Pandorica... It's a fairytale, like I said. It's a breach in the Time Lock. The War is long over inside, but someone, something inside is opening the Time Lock."

"So, the fighting'll spill out to us? To the rest of... umm, time?"

"Most likely, the war's long over. Time still progresses inside the Lock, just nobody can get in or out through time travel. The main issue is how long the Lock has been part of our universe. The War is literally locked back, a second after the universe was formed. There are ways through the Time Lock, various weird way. Most Time Locks, they take up literally a blip in time, and a planet, maybe a few planets tops. Outside the Lock, they're gone, just gone. The Universe is a little smaller, and time is shortened by a second. If they're breached..."

The Doctor spoke up, walking into the console room. "Not much happens. The Lock folds in upon itself. The space that was removed turns into a white hole, expelling all of the mass. Most of it comes out as random bits, protons, neutrons, maybe some atoms put together. A lot of them, but not really made into anything. Some of the more complex mass though, some that's most linked to Time, comes through whole. That's what the Time Lords called a pandorica, although we never witnessed one. If the Lock around the War collapses though..."

"What, Doctor? If it's that far back, nothing bad could happen, right?" Amy asked.

The Doctor looked at her sadly. "The Last Great Time War spanned the entire Universe, boiling plants and devouring stars. That's what I locked away. I tricked both sides into coming back to the Birth, and I locked them away across the entire Universe. At that time, it wasn't too big, but it was everything. If that collapses..."

Jack was visibly worried as he asked, "What, Doctor? What will happen?"

"Nothing, Jack. Silence will fall and all will be nothing."

Amy, scared, went to the only source of comfort she knew in the TARDIS. She walked to the Doctor and wrapped her arms around him, burrowing her head into his chest. He folded her into his embrace and she could feel him shaking slightly.

"Doctor, what if we could stop it? There couldn't be more than a few leaks, could there?"

The Doctor visibly shuddered. "Jack, we need to close it before it even starts opening. If we let it open even a small amount before closing it... The War will start again. The Battle TARDISes will scream through the vortex, the Imperial Fleet will burn galaxies, the Deathsmiths and the Skaro Degradations will return to bring the silence themselves. I can't face them again, Jack, I can't fight the Meanwhiles and Neverweres in the jaws of the Nightmare Child. I already cut down the Could've Been King; I already stopped all this from coming back once. I won't let it come back again."

Amy held onto the Doctor, drawing comfort from him and hopefully comforting the scared Time Lord. His words meant nothing to her, but the emotion behind them truly scared her.

"The Time Lords reached out past the Lock not too long ago, through the Master. They were going to pierce the Lock, end Time itself and destroy everything. This is going to be a thousand times worse, and that's if it opens completely. If we stop it, but some of them escape..."

Jack shuddered before standing taller, looking into the Doctor's eyes over Amy's fiery mane. "Well, Doctor," he started, "Where do we start?"

As Amy looked up at him, she saw a smile burst out from the Doctor's stoic face. "Jack, my friend, we start with somewhere I know very well, and I don't personally want to go back to."

"Is it any better than the Nightmare Child?"

The Doctor thought for a moment before detaching himself from Amy to start piloting the TARDIS. "You know, Jack, I think I'd rather go back to the jaws of the Nightmare Child than the Powell Estate." With that, the TARDIS lurched and the trio were off.

=x=

When the TARDIS landed, Amy was the first to the door. She still had lingering fears about the Pandorica and the Doctor's words, but excitement at seeing somewhere new quickly overrode that.

Amy was disappointed, however, when she opened the doors of the TARDIS and walked outside. She turned back to Jack and the Doctor, who were following her out. "This? This is London, Doctor. Around my time, too."

The Doctor didn't answer, but Jack took her aside as they walked. "If he says this is important, it is. But trust me, I think this is much worse for him than either of us."

The Doctor was making his way through the buildings, apparently heading towards a specific flat. He start climbing up to the door before reconsidering and leaning against the stairs. Amy and Jack caught up to him.

"What's up, Doctor? Is there a crack here?" Amy asked, catching her breath.

"Yes, yes. Late 2009, Peckham, the Powell Estate. I'm just not sure where, exactly, and I really hope it's not," the Doctor pointed up the stairs to one of the flats, "there."

He pulled out his sonic screwdriver, changing some settings and waving it around. Every so often, he would check the readings on the screwdriver and frown a little more. Amy and Jack simply sat back watching him, trying not to laugh. When he stomped back to them, however, they both sobered up. Amy stepped up to the Doctor and took his hand in hers.

"Up there?" she asked.

"Yeah."

Jack asked the pertinent question. "What's so special about this place, Doctor?"

The Doctor pointed up the stairs to the flat the trio was climbing towards. "Flat 48, Bucknall House, Powell Estate, Peckham, London. Until sometime in 2006, this was where the Tyler family lived."

Amy looked at him quizzically, while Jack gasped, and then burst out laughing.

"Damn, Doctor. Have you got all the luck. Why is there a crack here of all places?"

"The TARDIS, Jack. Enough landings and takeoffs weakens the wall a tiny bit; now that the cracks are forming, it seeks out weak points like this. I don't know who lives there now, but I hope they don't mind me saving the universe inside their flat."

Amy had had enough, and poked the Doctor in his side. "Who are the Tylers?"

"Rose Tyler, Amelia. I traveled with Rose Tyler for two years. After I lost her... I wasn't sure if I could ever love again."

Amy gasped, realizing how bad this must be for him. As they got to the door, she squeezed his hand. "And now?"

"Now, Amelia Pond, I'm thinking that it might be all too easy." The Doctor raised his hand and knocked on the door. He wasn't sure what to expect, so he stood back from the door, still holding Amy's hand, and brushing shoulders with Jack.

When the Door opened, the Doctor was grateful for their presence, because he almost collapsed. Opening the door was none other than Jackie Tyler.

Her unique voice, piercing his ears yet again, rang out. "Well, who are ya then? What do you... Doctor?" she asked, looking straight into the Doctor's eyes.

A/N: I KNOW! Crazy, isn't it! Surprised even me. Sometimes that happens, I spose. I'm working on the continuation of this WTF moment, promise. Until then, unfortunately, there's a bit of a cliffhanger in it for you! All you people worrying about that this means, please, stop! Or continue, I guess. Either way, you'll most likely not get it, it isn't what you expect (unless you're somehow connected to my brain, in which case, GET OUT!). This story is still 11/Amy, but there will be some bumps in the road. Oh, oh, bumps indeed. Muahahahahaha. Ahem. *hack* *cough* Anyway, please review! I need to know if this CRAZY TWIST was scary, or scary good! Thanks!


	8. The Pandorica Is Open

A/N: I know, I know. The next chapter so soon? Well, yeah. I kinda didn't sleep tonight, and I was writing and writing and writing and, well, you get the point. This chapter is completely epic, completely de-railing my outline, and completely surprising, even to me. Oh my god. So, if you don't recognize some of the terms used in this chapter, you should probably check out tardis(dot)wikia(dot)com. Not everything will be on there, as some of this is my own creation, but a lot of what's in this chapter was actually mentioned in the show. You should all know that though, being devoted watchers. RIGHT? Right. Anyway, here it is. I've already started on Ch.9, and it's a dooooozy. Enjoy, and please, please Review!

Disclaimer: I do not own. Not atall. Zeroth percentile. Nicht. Keine. Nada.

The Doctor was speechless. His knees gave out, and Amy only barely held him up. He let out a wordless moan, and Jack looked at him worryingly.

"Oh, come on Doctor, don't tell me you're doing that thing again, what's it. Regenerating or whatever." Jackie sighed, "Well, bring him in, he can kip out on the couch. Rose'll be back in a mo'. She just ran down to the grocery to pick up some cream."

The Doctor moaned again, sagging even more against Amy. She knew that she should probably be concerned about this old flame, but the Doctor's condition was even more worrying. She held him up until Jack could slip an arm around him, half-carrying the limp Time Lord into the Peckham flat. They turned the corner into the living room and laid the Doctor out on the couch, apparently passed out.

Jack and Amy sat at the kitchen table as Jackie prepared tea. Jack was thunderstruck, while Amy was simply confused. Jackie was nattering on about how long it had been since she saw the Doctor, how much Rose missed him, and how good it was to see him. When the tea was finished, she put it on the table and sat down.

"So, who are you two, then? Jumpin' around the stars with him?"

Jack looked at her blankly before shaking himself. "Sorry. I'm Jack, and this is Amy. I travelled with the Doctor and Rose for a bit, and a few other times with him."

Amy spoke up, "He picked me up not too long ago, out in Leadworth. He mentioned Rose to me a few times..."

Jackie snorted. "A few times? You should've seen them when they were here. Moonin' over each other like a coupla teenagers, not like an age-old alien and my Rose. He was so cute when he first picked her up, with that messy hair and his suit. A bit older and I might've gone for him, but he's with my Rose, and that's for the best."

Jack's thoughts ground to a halt. Messy hair? He knew that the Doctor regenerated while Rose was with him; the incarnation that picked up Rose was shorthaired, and never wore a suit. Only that crazy leather jacket. Something wasn't right here.

Jack stood and turned on Jackie, drawing his pistol and aiming it directly between her eyes. "Who are you, then?"

"What do ya mean? I'm Jackie Tyler! Ask the Doctor, he knows!"

Jack snorted, his finger tighting on the trigger. "The Doctor didn't have messy hair when he first met Rose. On top of that, Jackie and Rose Tyler were dragged, screaming, through the Void. The Doctor's heart broke that day, the day he lost Rose for good. There is no way to come back through that, not now that the voidwalls have strengthened. He came to me that day, crying and half-mad. I know you are not Jackie Tyler, so who are you?"

Jackie's mouth stretched into an impossible smile, and Jack's finger wavered on the trigger. Then, the not-Jackie's neck suddenly extended, wrapping around Jack's arm and crushing his hand. Her head reached forward and struck his neck, leaving four evenly spaced holes slightly hissing with acid.

Jack collapsed to the ground, seizuring and frothing. Amy screamed until Jackie's head righted on her shoulders. "Listen, silly human girl. You will shut your mouth if you want your Doctor, and yourself, to live. I need his help, yes, and I'm not afraid of killing you to make sure I get it."

Amy, shocked, simply fell to the floor, weeping for Jack, for herself, for the Doctor. The thing, whatever it was, walked over to the Doctor and shook him awake.

"Wake up, wake up. The Doctor in the TARDIS, aren't you? Come save your little girlfriend."

The Doctor jerked to consciousness, looking Jackie in the eye. "What-"

"Time Lord, know me." With those words, strangely wavering in the air, the Doctor finally saw the truth in the not-Jackie.

His expression tightened, and he rose slowly to his feet. He thought he noticed movement in the corner of his eye, but when he looked, it was just a blank spot of wall. When he looked back, Jackie's form wavered, changing to Rose and back in a blur before snapping back to Jackie.

"I destroyed you. My TARDIS opened up the skies beneath the army, sending the Meanwhiles and the Neverweres and the Could've Been King into the void. Even if you came through, you're behind the lock. How are you here?"

"Time Lord, name me."

The Doctor's eyes widened. "Name you? How can one name a Meanwhile, or a Neverwere? How can you crown the Could've Been King, how does the Nightmare Child mature?"

The not-Jackie was silent, unwavering. The Doctor began pacing, still ranting.

"How can I give a name to the Horde of Travesties, to the Screaming Nothing. How can I speak a Notspoken, or call a Deaf Dream? The Howling speaks, and the Untempered Schism sees, but never you. You just are."

The Doctor stopped his pacing, turning to fully face the not-Jackie, standing tall.

"I am Ka Faraq Gatri, the Oncoming Storm, the Destroyer of Worlds. I am the Watcher, the Sandman, the Lonely God. I am Theta Sigma of Lungbarrow, the Doctor of Gallifrey, and I name thee, foul one. I name thee Neverwere, under the command of the Could've Been King."

The not-Jackie shrunk, literally shrunk in size, before snapping back to full height. Then it spoke again.

"Time Lord, command me."

"Command you? Command you? You follow the Could've Been King, you are in his army. I know, I fought you, I destroyed you! How are you here?" the Doctor asked, now screaming.

Amy was frightened, scrambling back further into the kitchen. The Doctor, her raggedy Doctor was shouting, raising hell, and it was obvious that he was in pain and spitting mad. Her only distraction from the Doctor's confrontation with that... thing, was that Jack suddenly gasped and sat up, his arm whole and he was without any holes in his neck.

Amy was shocked, but she shushed him and pointed into the living room of the flat, where the Doctor was still shouting.

"I command you, foul Neverwere, speak to me. How are you here?"

The not-Jackie shuddered before answering. As she spoke, her form wavered, becoming more insubstantial with each word. "The Pandorica is opening, Time Lord. You are the Last and the First. As Rassilon was last and first in his time, true king of Time, you are last and first. And yet, you make no claim, build no throne. Time Lord, I name thee-"

"NO!" shouted the Doctor. "Name me nothing. I have no name. I am the Doctor, I am not your commander. I destroyed your commander. And even if I am the Last and the First, there is no culture for a throne, no Gallifrey for a kingdom. How can you name me such?"

The thing, by now more smoky and vague than anything resembling Jackie Tyler, spoke as if the Doctor hadn't said a word.

"Could've Been King. The Last and the First, with no throne but right, no crown but titles. I name thee, Time Lord, Could've Been King."

With this, the figure snapped into solidity, bearing more than a passing likeness to a slightly older Rose Tyler. Jack noticed, as did the Doctor, but Amy was confused. Then, when the Neverwere knelt before the Doctor, Jack and Amy both gasped, completely thunderstruck.

The Doctor slumped onto the couch, completely drained. "How... How can you name me such? I feel it now, I feel the link you've created. But I could never be king, there is nothing to rule!"

The thing spoke again from its kneeling position. "If there were a planet, Could've Been King, you could rule. Your servants would be many and your fist would be diamond. The Nightmare Child would submit to you and the Notspokens would cry your name. Even the Deaf Dreams would heed your call from the black of the void. Time Lords, Daleks, Humans and all known would bow before your might. You are the Could've Been King, and you are this one's commander."

The Doctor dropped his head into his hands, before sighing and standing again. He spoke down to the figure on the floor. "Change your form then, Neverwere. Take up a form of someone I do not know, and stay where you are."

The Doctor walked around the couch, into the kitchen. "Alright there, Jack?"

Jack spoke up, still flabbergasted. "Umm... yeah. But, Doctor... A Neverwere, here? On this side of the lock?"

The Doctor sat on the floor, next to Amy. He took her hand in his, lacing their fingers together. He looked at Jack, whispering, "I know, Jack. The War is leaking out. If we don't stop this soon, I don't know if we'll be able to. Either the war will leak out to the universe as we know it or..."

Jack spoke for him. "Silence will fall."

The Doctor sighed and leaned down, putting his head on Amy's shoulder. She brought up her opposite hand and stroked his hair gently, whispering to him. "I don't know what any of this means, Doctor, but I'm still here for you." She put her chin on the Doctor's head and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, she thought she saw movement out of the corner of her eye, but when she turned to look, there was nothing.

The Doctor squeezed her hand and laid a kiss on her cheek, drawing her out of her thoughts and deja vu. Then he stood up, helping her up on the way. Jack stood up, and they walked into the living room, presenting a united front to the Neverwere.

"Rise, servant," the Doctor ordered.

The Neverwere stood, looking like a middle-aged human, not quite greying around the temples. None of the trio recognized him.

"What control do I have over you? Do you need to stay with me? The Neverweres never left his side during the war."

"I exist to do your bidding. If I deviate, I am unwritten, replaced by one to whom betrayal never was. During the war, the Neverweres were his guard, the Meanwhiles were his advance scouts."

"And if I become King? If I am no longer a Could've Been?"

"Then the Neverweres ascend to become Always-ares, and the Meanwhiles descend to become Aftertruths. The Nightmare Child matures, and the Horde of Travesties is broken. The Notspokens speak, and the Deaf Dreams hear. The Eye of Harmony settles and the Harp sings once more."

The Doctor's eyes widened, hearing fairytales and legends from Gallifrey's past. Even Jack knew some of those things; the Harp of Rassilon had a file half a meter thick at the Time Agency.

"And if I close the Pandorica? If I Could Never be King?"

"The Pandorica is open, King. I am the Pandorica closed, I am a Neverwere."

The Doctor spoke out harshly, but his words were musical and lilting. Jack arched an eyebrow, and Amy leaned around the Doctor's back and caught his eye.

"Gallifreyan. He slipped into it the other night and I asked him."

Jack's eyebrow rose even further, wondering how she got the Doctor to... slip. He thought he caught something out of the corner of his eye, but when he looked back, nothing was there.

This time, the Doctor noticed it for sure. His expression tightened, and he spoke softly at first. "Of course. The Pandorica never was closed, giving birth to a Neverwere. Meanwhile, in another existence, it still is closed."

Then, speaking past the Neverwere, his voice rose, taking on a commanding air. "Come forth, specter. I name thee, foul demon, I name thee Meanwhile, under the command of the COuld've Been King."

A form snapped into solidity, standing next to the Neverwere. It looked extremely like Captain Jack Harkness, down to the good looks and the military greatcoat. The main difference was that this form was most definitely female. Jack's eyes lit up, fantasies running through his mind of a Jane Harkness.

"Could've Been King, know ya'self," it spoke, much less rigidly than the Neverwere.

The Doctor sighed. The Neverweres never were, so they wanted to know themselves. The Meanwhiles were born of what existed elsewhere, so they already knew themselves. They wanted to know more of what was here.

"I know myself. I know my mind, I know my heart, I know my soul. I know time, and I know you, Meanwhile."

The Meanwhile peered intently into the Doctor's eyes, its form wavering slightly. "Lying King, lying King. Know ya, know ya, see all the whiles."

The Doctor was startled by this response. He knew the forms, and unless a question was answered falsely, it just kept going, know, name, command. That was how the Time Lords bonded with their TARDISes, and the Neverweres and Meanwhiles operated under the same laws.

"I know myself, Meanwhile. I know my mind, I know my h-"

"King, King, know ya, know ya. Heart? Heart?" the form spoke again, wavering even more.

The Doctor realized what the sticking point was. He turned to Amy, tugging slightly on their joined hands to get her attention. She looked at him quizzically.

"Amelia Pond, this Meanwhile believes that I do not know my own heart. So I say to you, Amelia Pond," with this, the Doctor switched into the musical, lilting Gallifreyan tongue. The words tickled Amy's ears, sending shivers down her spine and heat through her veins. As he was speaking, she gradually became aware of a whisper in the back of her head that she knew was a translation of what he was saying.

/"...declare in my heart of hearts that never leaves the vortex but is always with my soul that this one, this Lady is in mine Eye for all of time, for eternity and beyond all that was and shall be. This Lord requests that their lines be intertwined until the Scarlet Cascade and through the death of all time when the last TARDIS disappears at the behest of the Other. Does this one accept?"/

Amy was bewildered, both by the words and the translation.

The Doctor whispered to her, this time in english, "It's nothing permanent, Amelia. It's a declaration of courtship, it says that we wish to explore our relationship and-"

Amy interrupted him, "Intertwine our lines?"

He looked at her sideways, realizing that she understood. "Our timelines, Amy. This will make us closer, it will be harder to separate us, but the lines can always deviate if you want them to. Just know that this declaration means that I don't want to."

Amy looked deep into his eyes before speaking, surprising herself at the musical tones of Gallifreyan leaving her lips. "This Lady accepts, and may her lines be intertwined with this Lord's until Omega take the final star."

The Doctor's face broke into a wide smile, and Amelia could feel a subtle shift between them, but she wasn't sure what it was. He turned to the Meanwhile and spoke again.

"I know myself. I know my mind, I know my heart, I know my soul. I know time, and I know you, Meanwhile. Speak."

The Meanwhile was apparently satisfied, because it continued.

"Could've Been King, Could've Been King, name ya, name ya'self."

The Doctor sighed again. "I am Theta Sigma of Lungbarrow, I am the Doctor of Gallifrey, I am the Oncoming Storm and the Destroyer of Worlds. I am Time's Champion, the Threefold Man, and the Lonely Angel. I am the Could've Been King, Meanwhile, and I name myself nameless."

The Meanwhile looked hard at the Doctor, examining him from all times and possibilities. Then, after a few excruciating seconds, it spoke in its quavering, harmonic voice.

"Meanwhile, King, you have no name. No name, in no world, in no time, no time. Nowhere, nowhen, nohow, no name. You're nameless, nameless. Time Lord, Doctor, King. King, command ya'self."

The Doctor sighed with relief, knowing that the Meanwhile could easily have found some existence where he still knew his name. That wouldn't have been good, for some reason.

"Meanwhile, I offer three commands. I command my mind, preserve. I command my soul, endure. I command my heart, love."

The Meanwhile snapped back into solidity, not wavering any more and definitely looking like Jack's identical, but female, twin.

"King, your army is assembled. More can be called, as they never were. More can be brought, in the meanwhile. Command your servants."

The Doctor thought for a moment, his thumb tracing slow patterns on Amy's hand. Jack put his hand on the Doctor's shoulder, offering silent support.

"Neverwere, I command your legions. Examine the lock, specify the Pandorica, the source and the cause. Reveal to me the solution that never was but could be."

The Neverwere nodded once and faded into nothingness. With it went the furnishings of the flat, leaving it empty and obviously vacant. The Doctor turned to the Meanwhile.

"Meanwhile, I command your legions. Go into the ether, trace the possibilities. Find one where this has happened and I solved it, and report the events to me."

The Meanwhile bowed deeply before snapping into nothing with a sharp crack. When the trio was finally alone in the room, the Doctor dropped bonelessly to the floor. Amy dropped to her knees next to him, pressing her hand against his cheek.

Jack sat down on the couch, staring off into space. "Alright there, Doctor?"

The Doctor groaned, pressing his cheek more firmly into Amy's hand. "Jack, did I just command the Meanwhiles and the Neverweres?"

"Yup, I'd say you did, King."

The Doctor jumped to his feet, shaking his finger at Jack. "Jack! Don't call me that! I'm not the Could've Been King, I killed him. I ripped a hole in the voidwalls, in the beyond, and sent the King and his legions hurtling past time and into the Torch of Infinity."

Amy smiled at the Doctor, speaking playfully from her positon kneeling on the floor. "You could have fooled me, Doctor. Sounds like you did a lot of commanding there. Sounded almost... Royal, didn't it, Jack?"

Jack nodded, smiling at the Doctor.

"Come on Doctor, isn't this better? At least they're on your side!"

The Doctor was incredulous. "Isn't this better? It's the Meanwhiles and the Neverweres! What's next? Is the Nightmare Child going to bow? Am I going to get the Moment back? How about I start wearing the Sash of Rassilon around, just for laughs, Jack?"

Jack looked a bit past the Doctor, his eyes glazing over slightly. "Just... Just the Sash, Doctor?"

The Doctor scoffed, thumping Jack on his shoulder. "Let's get back to the TARDIS, you two. We're going to talk to an old friend, see what he has to say, if he'd accept his most bitter enemy against a common foe. I still say no."

=x=

When they got back to the TARDIS, Jack immediately begged off, heading straight to his pink, pink bedroom.

The Doctor and Amy headed towards his bedroom. He started changing, heading into the shower as she flopped down on his bed. They spoke through the bathroom door as he showered.

"So, Doctor, explanations?"

"Where do you want me to start?"

Amy thought for a moment, trying to figure out her most pressing question. "How about we start with the translation in my head?"

"Well, I'd guess..."

As he was answering, Amy heard that voice in the back of her head again. She sat up and listened intently.

/"Amelia Pond, with the fairytale name... I speak to you as I speak to your beloved, my beloved. We are one now, we share this link. I am his TARDIS, your TARDIS, and you are my pilots."/

"Amy? Amy? Hello, are you still there," the Doctor was shouting from the shower as Amy shook herself out of her daze.

"Yeah, umm, Doctor. What does it mean that the TARDIS is in my head?"

"What?"

"She says that me and you are her pilots."

"What?"

"She says that we share a link."

"What?"

"Doctor! Please, something other than, 'What?'"

"WHAT?" the doctor sputtered, swallowing some water. The shower cut off and the bathroom door slammed open. The Doctor ran out, kneeling in front of the bed where Amy was sitting.

"She spoke to you? She said that you share a link!"

"Yes! I just told you that! And why are you naked?"

The Doctor looked down, just realizing his unclothed state. He blushed brightly and ran back into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. Amy definitely didn't watch his arse as he ran, not at all.

"You don't understand, Amelia. TARDISes only get the chance to form a link twice in their existence. I was lucky that she hadn't bonded when I stole her, or I would have never formed a link."

"So, is it like, the first one to fly her?"

The Doctor paused a moment, before coming out of the bathroom wearing pajama pants and nothing else. Amy blushed again, but let her eyes trace over the slim lines of his torso.

"Not quite. She chose me. I'm sure that others tried, but she chose me in the end. Usually, TARDISes are piloted by six Time Lords, but the ship is only bonded to one, the Head Pilot. Then, when that Time Lord begins courtship, their partner visits their TARDIS to see if... Well, if they are compatible. If the TARDIS starts the bonding, they are."

"...Com...patible?"

"The Doctor blushed again. "Time Lords... we're sterile, Amy. It's not like that. But... there's really no 'marriage', per say, on Gallifrey. Rather, during courtship, you find out if you're compatible, and if you are, a... umm... psychic link, of sorts, is formed."

Amy fell back on the bed again, staring up at the ceiling. "So like, we can read each other's minds?"

The Doctor was beet red when he sat next to her on the bed. "You've got to understand, Amy, this is the equivalent of discussing... I don't know, the night of the honeymoon with humans."

Amy laughed, smacking him on the shoulder. "Okay, so we can read each others minds. Anything else?"

"Seriously, Amy, I don't even know what will happen. The TARDIS speaking to you is a good surprise. I didn't even know if it was possible with humans. I don't know if the psychic link will form, if the bond will mature, anything. Even if it does, I don't know if you'll even be able to use it! You're so young!"

Amy yelled at this point, still being playful. "Hey! I'm twenty one, thank you very much!"

The Doctor looked at her, tracing his hand over her face. "Yes, beautiful Amelia, you are. At that age, we're just leaving the nursery for, well, primary school on Gallifrey. There's definitely no courtship, no TARDIS bond, and no mate bond!"

Amy's eyes widened, realizing how different they really were. "Wow... Well, we'll have to see how it goes, yeah?"

The Doctor flopped back on the bed and rolled onto his side, running his fingers through her hair.

The last thing she heard before drifting off to sleep was him saying, "Yeah."

A/N: BY RASSILON! This chapter was epic, non? Oui. So, please tell me how you liked it. I promise, this is going to have far-reaching repercussions, probably some that I haven't even forseen across parallel dimensions yet. What? Anyway, please do review, this is kind of a groundbreaking chapter, and I really am worried about how you all like it. Thanks!


	9. An Old Friend Asks For a Key

A/N: I'm so sorry for the delay! Between work and moving and being sick, I got barely any time to work on this! So I do apologize, and you all are going to hate me even more after this chapter. I hope you like it, and as always, please, Read and Review!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything!

Amy woke up in the Doctor's bed with his arms draped around her. She pulled her head out from the crook of his neck and gently worked on untangling their legs. As she did, he woke up.

"Huh?"

"Sorry, Doctor. Just me; I have to use the loo."

The Doctor released her from his embrace, rolling over away from her and stretching. She quickly slid out of bed and padded to the bathroom. After a few minutes, she slid back into bed, pressing herself against the Doctor's side and putting her leg on top of his own.

"Doctor?"

"Yes, Amelia?"

"I need a name for you. If you're serious about... long-term... I can't keep calling you the Doctor in bed."

The Doctor blushed, turning his head to look her in the eyes. "Amy... Amelia... I don't have a name. It's not that I won't tell you it, it's that I do not have one."

"Oh... I mean, I'm not trying to pry or anything, but what were you called? Like, in school?

"Well, it's complicated. I guess, the best name to use... I was called Theta Sigma; it's a number, not a name, but that's that they called me. If you want, you can call me Thete."

Amy put her palm on his cheek, gently cupping his face. "Thete?"

"Short for Theta. I don't really want to be reminded of those days, but you're right. It's better than the Doctor," he said, pressing his cheek against her hand."

"Well, Doctor, maybe we can give it some better memories. Yeah?"

He pressed up against her, holding her tight to his chest. "Yeah."

After a short time cuddling, the pair slowly disentangled and began preparing for the day. Amy went back to her own room to shower and change, while the Doctor did the same in his.

When she came out to the console room of the TARDIS, Jack and the Doctor were chatting as the Doctor idly flipped switches and turned dials on the center console.

"Well, I dare say if there is a crack anywhere, it should be here. I've landed here enough, within two or three years of each other. That will weaken the walls like nothing else, which is why I try to avoid it."

Jack smiled slightly and replied. "Yeah, but still, they should have healed fine, right?"

"Right. Unfortunately, something is causing extra stress. It could be another incursion like Canary Wharf, but that is nearly impossible since I strengthened the voidwalls."

"Yeah, but what else could it be? The last time it was ghostly Cybermen everywhere, now it's these cracks?"

The Doctor simply sighed, flipping more switches. He brightened when he saw Amy, saying, "Well, miss Amelia Pond, are you ready for a ride?"

The Doctor hit a switch and the TARDIS lurched, throwing Jack against the railing and Amy and the Doctor together against the console.

The Doctor and Amy laughed, while Jack groaned.

"The back, Doctor, always the back? You couldn't give a warning first?"

The Doctor only laughed more before flipping some more switches. The ride only got rockier, shaking some loose pieces off of the console. Switches and dials went flying, and the Doctor watched the paths, frowing.

"Now I'm going to need to find them! Come on, girl, I know it's hard so recently, but you can make it!"

Jack, who was holding onto the railing for dear life, yelled out, "Doctor? Is it supposed to be this rough?"

He was surprised, then, when it was Amy that yelled back. "Wading uphill, Jack. We just came this way not too long ago, so now we need to fight through the vortex as it repairs itself."

"How do you know that?"

Amy threw him a look around the Time Rotor. "I'm with the Doctor."

As she said this, all three were thrown to the ground by the sudden absence of movement in the TARDIS. The Doctor jumped up with a delighted cheer, flipping even more switches, turning even more dials, and checking various screens and readouts.

"That's a good girl, my TARDIS! I promise, once we save everything, you're getting to choose our destination and we'll relax! Flow with the stream and all that."

Amy and Jack stood shakily, brushing themselves off from their harrowing journey. They shared a small smile before standing on either side of the Doctor, looping their arms through each of his.

The Doctor looked over at Jack, then at Amy, before saying, "Ready, my beautiful companions?"

Amy smiled at him. "Ready, my Doctor."

Jack just groaned. "Ugh, my back."

They laughed as the doors opened and they stepped out into the open air on top of a London Bunker in World War Two. Jack looked worried, but Amy was excited.

"Oh! Are we going to see Winston again?"

Jack grimaced. "Doctor, are we? I might stay in the TARDIS..."

The Doctor laughed, slapping Jack on the back. "Don't worry Captain, I won't let the big bad Prime Minister arrest you."

Suddenly, a door to the side slammed open, and soldiers began spilling out, guns at the ready, trained on the Doctor. Behind them walked Winston Churchill, with his ever-present cigar.

"Ahh, Doctor!"

"Winston, old chap! How are you? It's been a while."

Churchill extended his hand, reaching towards the Doctor.

"Ahh, Winston, in a hurry, unfortunately. Can we skip to part where I tell you no?"

Churchill frowned, but nodded. He signalled for the soldiers to stand down. "Of course, Doctor. Urgency prevails. To what do I owe this visit so soon?"

"We're looking for a crack, Winston. A glowing, twirling, stomach-twisting crack, somewhere around where we landed last time."

"A crack, Doctor? Like a crack in the plaster?"

Amy smiled slightly, remembering the crack in her wall and how it brought the Doctor to her. Her raggedy Doctor.

"Much like it, Winston. Most likely glowing with twisting, nauseating white light."

Churchill thought for a moment before replying. "No, Doctor, I don't believe I've seen the like. You can look where you came in last week, though."

"Yes, Winston, we would definitely like that."

He turned to Amy and Jack but quickly turned back to Churchill. "I almost forgot; Winston, you remember Amy, yes?"

Churchill sketched a shallow bow in Amy's direction, saying, "Of course, Ms. Pond. Good to see you again."

The Doctor smiled. "And this is Captain Jack Harkness. Had he been born a few years earlier, you might have had him in one of your regiments."

Jack almost choked on his laughter at the Doctor's dramatic exaggeration, but reined it in and smiled. "Very nice to meet you, sir," he said formally, drawing himself straight and giving the Prime Minister a formal salute. He was glad, at least, that this was before Winston Churchill wanted him executed.

Churchill returned the salute loosely, saying, "At ease, Captain. Very nice to meet you."

The Doctor looped his arm through Amy's and the group proceeded through the halls of the command bunker. When they reached the storage room that the TARDIS had landed in previously, there were two soldiers stationed outside. The light inside was leaking out from under the door.

"You there," Churchill said, addressing the guards, "Who is in there? I gave orders that this room was to be sealed off."

"Yes sir. Nobody in or out, sir."

"Then what is that light doing on? Open that door."

The Doctor put the clues together a millisecond too late. As the soldier reached towards the doorknob, he stretched for him, shouting, "NO!"

Before he could reach, the soldier touched the doorknob, and there was a flash of light. The Doctor heard the sound of trumpets before he knew nothing more.

A/N: Well, that's it! That's the end of the story. Unfortunately, our protagonists are unwritten in a freak accident. :-( I hope you liked it, and keep your eye out for my next story!

Actual A/N: Hahaha! Joking, joking!That chapter... wow. It took so long to work on, and quite a bit of effort to get nearly perfect. It's mostly dialogue, since we're revisiting a familiar setting and all, but I think I got the characterizations and the emotions down. I'm so sorry for the cliffie! I hate them as a reader, but as a writer, I definitely see the benefit of building some tension! So yeah, it's a bit short, which I apologize for, but I have the next chapter all planned out and already almost finished. I'm just waiting a bit to post, writing the next next chapter, trying to build up a bit of a backlog so that there won't be this bad of a delay again. I promise, it won't be too long until the next chapter is up. Promise, promise, promise! So yes, please, Read and Review!


	10. Unconsciousness is Bliss

A/N: The cliffie is resolved! I knew I couldn't take too long on it, so here's the next chapter as promised! I am working on 11, which should be a pretty interesting chapter. Just so everybody knows, my original outline called for this story to be 12 chapters, 18 if i split the middle 6 up like I did 3/4. Even having completely derailed that outline, I am looking at roughly the same length, 12-14 chapters. There will be an interesting side-story in the next chapter or the one after, but then, we're wrapping up. There may or may not be a sequel, I'm not sure, but even if there isn't, fear not, I'll still be writing. So, after this weekend, keep your eyes out for Chapter 11. As always, please, read, enjoy, and review.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Pants.

When the Doctor came to, it took him a few moments to recall what happened before his unconscious state. When he finally did remember, he shot to his feet, yelling.

"Amy!"

He noticed, near his position on the floor, Amy and Jack, crumpled and obviously unconscious. He whipped out the sonic screwdriver and started waving it over Amy's prone form, checking the readouts on the side occasionally.

When he was satisfied that Amy was fine, he did the same for Jack, ignoring the usual readings about Jack's strange temporal readings.

He was at Amy's side immediately as she began to stir. When she opened her eyes and tried to sit up, he snaked his hand behind her back and helped her up.

"Are you alright, Amelia?"

"I... I think so, Doctor. What... What happened?"

"I don't kn-"

The Doctor was interrupted by Jack suddenly sitting up, gasping for air. He rolled over, retching, but then shortly seemed fine and stood up.

"I don't know, Amelia, but whatever it was, it apparently killed Jack."

"Killed him! But he's alive?"

Jack spoke up, still a little breathless. "Sorry, Amy. It doesn't normally come up in casual conversation. I can't be killed. That light should've killed me, same as the Neverwere masquerading as Jackie. I just come back."

"How?" she asked, flabbergasted.

"We might have an explanation later," the Doctor said, "but for now, Amy, I think there's a more pressing question. Why are we still alive, and where is everyone else?"

For the first time since waking, Amy looked around, realizing that Churchill and his soldiers were missing. She opened her mouth to ask, but the Doctor put his finger to her lips.

"Listen. What do you hear?

"Nothing, Doctor."

"Exactly, Amelia, Jack. Silence. The Pandorica is open and silence has fallen."

=x=

The trio wandered the bunker, looking for any explanation, any sign of life. They checked the storage closet, their original landing point first. It looked like a storage closet.

Then they checked the TARDIS, which was fine and sitting right where they left it.

They checked the central command room of the bunker. The map was still there, with the pieces all on it representing the various fronts of the War. The various extension poles used to push the pieces around were scattered on the floor, looking as though their holders had dropped them and fled.

They looked all around, wandering in silence. The whole time, the Doctor grew more and more frustrated. Sometime during their fruitless search, his frustration turned to anger.

"NO! This can not happen. This did not happen. It's so... empty! Nothing is here. How is this possible?"

"Doctor," Amy whispered, putting her hand on his arm.

"No. I refuse to accept this. I am the Doctor, I am the Oncoming Storm. And the winds are churning, because this storm is angry."

"Doctor," Jack started. He hesitated before continuing, "Can't you ask for help?"

"What help, Jack? Who can help us? I can't even feel them. Within the entire range of my mind, the only timelines I can feel are our own and the Earth's."

"Doctor... King," Jack stated, hesitant and reluctant.

"How, Jack? One Neverwere and one Meanwhile? Even for personified ideals, two won't help us."

Jack closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Doctor, this crack, it... 'unwrites' the people it touches?"

"Yes, Jack. They were never born, there is no record of their existence, no memory to anyone but us, time travellers."

Jack was even more hesitant, but he ventured forth bravely. "Like they... Never were?"

Amy gasped, realizing his point. The Doctor was preoccupied, though, and simply replied.

"Exactly, Jack. None of these people ever existed. They never... were... Oh, no..."

The Doctor sat down suddenly, leaning against a nearby wall. Amy dropped to her knees, worrying about him. She pressed her hand to his forehead and whispered sweet nothings to him. After a few moments, he took her hand and stood.

"Okay, Jack, you're right. I may not like it, but you're right. Amy..."

The Doctor stopped talking and simply turned to face the quiet redhead. He took her face in his hands, cupping her chin, and kissed her softly. She gasped, feeling not only his physical touch, but his mental presence. His thoughts spoke to her in the musical, twisting words of Gallifreyan, but she could understand them perfectly.

'Amelia Pond of Leadworth, England, Earth, Sector Seven Alpha Qubit, Milky Way, Subdivision Exoplanar Factor Seventeen Apple Six, Tesseractal Cell Three. I implore you, under the Courtship regulations of the Council of Rassilon. Do you accept this mental construct, designed to increase intimacy and personal communication between two courting Lords?'

Amy somehow realized what he was asking. Would she accept a permanent psychic link? Something linking their minds together, possibly forever? Without hesitation, she answered in her mind, speaking the musical tones of Gallifreyan almost without realizing.

'The Doctor, Theta Sigma of Longbarrow, Wild Endeavour, Gallifrey, Sector Eleven Gamma Epsilon, Mutter's Spiral, Subdivision Ten Not Center, Tesseractal Cell Zero. I accept this psychic linkage, may it bridge our consciousness and make us as one.'

Amy didn't know where the words came from, she wasn't sure how she was speaking Gallifreyan in her thoughts. The only thing, at this moment, that she was sure of, absolutely positive of, was that she wanted to be able to hear his voice, to speak to him, no matter where or when he was. She felt a presence in her mind, not unpleasant, and she smiled realizing that it was her link to the Doctor.

He kissed her again, gently, and then more forcefully. When they pulled away to breathe, he turned from her and gave Jack a hard look. As one, they marched up the stairs and out of the bunker, on top of the building. The Doctor faced the expanse of the roof, seemingly addressing nothing.

"I am Theta Sigma of Gallifrey, the Doctor of the TARDIS. I name myself Could've Been King, and I call upon my legions. Neverweres, come to me."

When there was no response, the Doctor spoke much more forcefully, almost roaring into the silence.

"NEVERWERES, COME UNTO ME. MEANWHILES, ATTEND YOUR KING!"

This time, as soon as he finished speaking, the air began rippling. In front of the trio appeared the slightly graying older man they recognized as the Neverwere, and Jack's dreamgirl, Jane Harkness, the Meanwhile.

"Where are my legions?"

"King, King. All have been born are here, King. Here, King, Here, King."

"Neverwere, speak. Can you feel the timelines in this area?"

The Neverwere appeared to be contemplating, even going so far as to look around. "No, King. None have ever been here."

The Doctor smiled grimly. "Exactly. There are thousands of souls in this area that never were. Thus, they are my legions. Bring them to me."

"King, King. None, None. Nothing, Empty, Void."

"BRING THEM TO ME."

The Neverwere was shocked into disappearance. Even Amy and Jack were shocked by his harsh tone, but he spoke comfortingly to Amy through her mind.

'Fear not, Amelia.' Somehow, her name carried extra connotations in Gallifreyan. The melodic notes carried extra meanings to them, somehow expressing her name, along with a sense of possessiveness and... love? 'I will be stern with them because they know what I seek. Never with you, my dearest.' That too, dearest, carried much deeper undertones in the words. The depth of conversation in Gallifreyan blew Amy away.

The Neverwere reappeared next to the Meanwhile. Slowly, behind it, vast hordes of formless shapes started becoming clearer. When it spoke, its voice carried strange echoes, as though it spoke with the voices of thousands, all not quite overlapping.

"You are the Uncrowned, the Could've Been King. You are our General, you who are Time. Command your legions, King."

The Doctor looked over the slowly-clarifying masses, before frowning slightly. He turned and faced the Meanwhile.

"Meanwhile, know me."

"King, King, Could've Been King. Know ya'self, King, King, lying King."

"Can you not see that I know myself? I know my heart and mind, and they are as one."

"King, King. Late King. Twelve, Two, Fractional, Factoral, Exponential. Late King, King, King."

Amy frowned, trying to work through the Meanwhile's confusing words. She whispered to herself, trying to work through the confusion. "Twelve, two... fractional? Fact... Factoral?" She tried to remember her A-Levels. It was something about splitting up bigger numbers with multiplication.

"My tardiness makes me no less your commander. I say to you, Meanwhile, know me."

"See you, see you, King, King. Late King, Could've Been, King, on time, time, King."

"These people never were, but meanwhile, somewhere else, they still are. Where are your brethren?"

"Coming, King, King. Takes time, time, King."

As the Doctor started looking out at the masses again, it seemed like they suddenly doubled in number, with the newcomers appearing much more fully-formed and clear. The original group was still coming into focus, but the new arrivals were already clear, looking like the people that had been in the area before the crack opened. The Doctor even noticed a stoic Winston Churchill standing right behind the original Meanwhile, smoking his ever-present cigar.

As one, the assembled masses seemed to speak two overlapping sentences.

"King, King/Could've Been King/Command your/Know, Know/Legions, King/Tell, tell, command, command/We are yours."

Amy winced as her brain tried to process the overlapping voices, thousands, tens of thousands of them. Jack was stoic, but as she spied him out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a single tear track down his cheek. The Doctor only stood taller as he spoke.

"This should never have happened. I know that, and your birth means that you know that. Now, I command you. I am the Could've Been King, and I command my Army of Meanwhiles and Neverweres, find out how I can stop this. NOW!" the Doctor finished, roaring the last word.

Amy winced as her ears hurt, but his presence in her head calmed her and soothed her pain. Jack simply pressed his hands to his ears. Even immortal fifty-first century time-travelling ears aren't meant to stand up to the full force of an angry Time Lord's yell.

The assembled legions flashed into solidity before flashing out into nothingness. Before the trio could relax, however, they were back again. The Doctor half-turned to Jack and winked at him.

"You were right, Jack. Two wouldn't have gotten us anywhere, but tens of thousands... We should have an answer."

The original Meanwhile and Neverwere stepped up, speaking again with the voices of the legions.

"King, King. Balance, restored, Harmony, destroyed. Open, close, nobody knows."

"King, we have searched all of what also is and never shall be. There are two answers, neither pleasant."

"Continue."

"Could've Been King, the easiest way is to allow a fresh start. Balance must be restored. The multiverse began through the collapse of another, the implosion of the beginning Pandorica and the original white hole. Allow nature to run its course and all to be unwritten to begin anew."

The Doctor grimaced, having just confirmed one of the Time Lords' most un-confirmable theories. He gestured for the Neverwere to continue.

"Could've Been King, the second option is to initiate a Harmonic Resonance Cascade."

The Doctor's eyes widened, and his breath came short. Amy grabbed his hand in both of hers, holding tight to him and trying to send him some support over their newly-formed link. Shortly, his breath came more evenly, and he turned to Jack.

"Jack, this is important. I need your Vortex Manipulator."

Then, he turned to Amy, putting comforting pressure on her hands.

"Amy, this is almost as important, if not more so. I need you to run - run, mind you - and find me some paper and pencils. Pencils, not pens, at least a dozen of them, and at least half a ream of paper."

Amy nodded at him and gave his hand one final squeeze before running towards the door into the bunker. When she reached it, she paused, wondering how much half a ream was. She heard his voice, comforting as always, in her head.

'At least two hundred and fifty sheets, dearest. Unlined, if possible.'

She smiled and opened the door, running through the halls and checking every office and supply closet she found, looking for that much paper. She found pencils here and there, and took every one she could find. Finally, she stumbled upon one supply closet with boxes of paper, all of it blank. She reached into one of the open boxes and came up with a big handful of paper. As soon as she found it, she heard the Doctor again in her head.

'Amelia, have you found it?'

She tried to reply to him, thinking hard, 'Yes, Doctor, I'm coming now.'

The only response she got from him was a weary, 'Don't shout, please...'

She giggled.

When she got back to the roof, she found the Doctor and Jack laying down, staring at Jack's vortex manipulator and drawing designs in the sand on the roof. Jack had a grim look on his face, but the Doctor was the picture of determination. She dropped the paper gently next to the Doctor's elbow and started pulling pencils out of her pockets, her sleeves, and wherever else they fit.

When the pulled a few out of her bra, she looked up to see the Doctor giving her a very strange look. She wasn't sure if it was passionate, dreaming, or possessive, but she liked it.

"Thank you very much, lovely Amelia. Now, unfortunately, I think this might be a job for those who studied Temporal Quantum Tunneling. It'll be boring, but you might learn something if you listen in."

"I will, Doctor. Thank you."

Jack was already transcribing some of their drawings and equations from the dust on the roof to the paper, and the Doctor joined in, speaking almost too rapidly for Amy to follow. She didn't understand what they were discussing, but she listened anyway, asking questions and adding her two cents here and there.

The Meanwhiles and the Neverweres quietly stood, sat, or hung in the air. None of them made a sound as the Doctor, Amy, and Jack made plans and determined the fate of the universe.

A/N: How will they fix this? This is a big deal. Like, a BIG deal. Now, here's the question. The first person to guess (correctly) what a Harmonic Resonance Cascade is, gets either a: a shout out in an A/N, or 2: a mention in one of my future stories. Your choice. There's a hint in the chapter, if you squint hard. Toodlez!


	11. Jack?

A/N: Sorry this took so long, and is so short! It's definitely me shortest chapter yet, which I do apologize for. I've been so swamped this week, I just haven't gotten a chance to write. I fought off sleep long enough tonight (well, this morning. It's 5AM here) to write this, but I can't continue any further and I kind of like the stopping point. I promise, I'll have the next up as soon as I physically can. Promise Promise.

Disclaimer: I own nothing! Nothing!

Amy rolled over in bed, but when she slung her arm over the Doctor, it simply fell flat on the blankets. She opened her bleary eyes, noticing that for once in quite a while, she was alone in the bed.

She padded out to the TARDIS console room, finding that one of the walls had sprouted a large table. The Doctor and Jack were huddled around it, shuffling through a huge amount of papers. She shuffled up behind the Doctor and put her arms around him, pressing her cheek to his back. She felt his amusement through their link.

'Sleepy,' she thought to him, toning down her mental voice to acceptable levels, 'but you aren't there. Do you have it figured out?'

The Doctor laughed and rotated in her embrace, folding her into his arms. "Almost, my dear. Jack and I know what we have to do, we just have to figure out when and where."

"And how, Doctor. That's pretty important."

"And how, of course. That's going to be the tricky part. Amy has a point though, let's take a break. We're sitting outside of time, a break won't change anything."

"Doctor, this is still progressing on the base timeline..."

The Doctor sighed and pulled Jack away from the table. "Jack, Jack. You only know your silly Manipulator. The TARDIS pulls us halfway into the Void. Even the base timeline isn't moving from our perspectives."

Jack looked surprised, but he nodded. "Alright, Doctor, if you say so. I'll relax for a bit in my room. Don't do anything I wouldn't do!"

Amy slapped him on the shoulder, laughing. "That leaves us with plenty to do, doesn't it?"

The Doctor blushed as some of what she was thinking leaked across the link, and then the pair meandered down the corridors of the TARDIS hand in hand. When they arrived at the Doctor's bedroom, Amy pushed him towards the bathroom.

"A shower will relax you, and then we'll cuddle. Deal?"

"Deal," he said, walking towards the bathroom. She heard the water turn on shortly thereafter. Amy relaxed on their bed, drifing in and out of a contented sleep until the Doctor came out of the bathroom and tucked her in. He slid under the covers next to her and held her close to him.

He and Jack had been working hard for hours, and even his Time Lord physiology was starting to feel the strain. He pulled Amy close, feeling her single heartbeat matching his own double cadence. He slowly drifted off, holding her tight to his chest.

=x=

Some time later, the Doctor was jolted from his sleep by the feeling of something... wrong. He wasn't sure what, but something was wrong with the TARDIS. Amy woke too, feeling his discomfort through their link.

She rolled over in his arms and looked at his face, tight with concentration. She raised her hand up, snaking it through his embrace, and gently cupped his cheek. When he looked into her eyes, she asked him. "Doctor? Thete? What's wrong?"

"I don't know, sweet Amelia. The TARDIS is trying to tell me something, but I can't quite understand. Time to check the console, I think."

The pair relucantly got out of bed, the Doctor dressing while Amy stayed in her pajamas. They made their way hand in hand to the console room, but when the Doctor noticed that the Time Rotor was glowing an angry red, he quickly dropped her hand and ran to the console.

Jack was already there. "Doctor! I heard some strange sounds, and when I came out to investigate, the console was freaking out! What's happening?"

The Doctor checked some screens and flipped some switches, but nothing he did seemed to help.

"I don't know! It seems like something is pulling us, but what could pull the TARDIS through the Vortex?"

Amy was worried, but she wasn't sure how she could help. She contented herself by watching the main viewscreen and sending comforting thoughts to the Doctor.

The Doctor barked some instructions to Jack, and the pair jumped around the console, checking screens and pressing buttons. After a short while, the Time Rotor lost its red glow and everything seemed to settle back to normal.

Jack looked around the console at the Doctor. "Well? Did you stop it?"

"No, Jack. Whatever was pulling us... stopped. I'd say that it got us to where it wanted us. I just don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing."

Jack was quiet, and Amy started to get worried.

"Well, Doctor, shall we find out?"

The Doctor smiled and agreed. The trio returned to their individual rooms to dress, and then met back up in the console room, ready to travel out the doors.

"Apparently, the environment will sustain us, it's Earthlike enough. We're somewhere in Tesseractal Cell Six, but I have no clue where. Even the TARDIS isn't sure, since we didn't land here on purpose."

Jack thought for a minute, before speaking out. "Cell Six... I know the cells are large portions of space/time, but that would be somewhere around 51st century Boeshane."

"We could be all the way across time and space from there, Jack, but yes. We could be right around the plantation at Villengard. For all we know, it could be a version of you with that damned Vortex Manipulator, so please Jack, be careful who you touch."

"Of course, Doctor. I'm not stupid."

The Doctor smiled at Jack, taking some of the sting out of his words. Then he reached for the doors of the TARDIS and opened them.

They were apparently in a futuristic hospital, next to a convalescence bed. In the bed was a graying old man, obviously nearing his last hours. When the old man looked up to see them, he only spoke one word.

"Jack?"

A/N: Okay, again, sorry it's so short. I will have another one up ASAP. And, since nobody got the last quiz question right, here's another. Who is the old man? Again, first one right gets either a shoutout in next chapter's A/N or a cameo in a future story. The answer to the last quiz question will be revealed in the fullness of time, promise. This one will be answered next chapter, so guess by the time I write it! As always, thanks for reading, and please Review!


	12. An Old Friend of Jack's

A/N: Here you go, children! A nice bedtime story! Or morning story, or... whatever. Just so everyone knows, Wedding Eve is now finished. Not this chapter, but I mean that I have indeed written everything that will be written in this story. I'm going to be polishing and editing the remaining chapters, but the next one will be up in the next few days. Maybe even tomorrow. Not sure. So yeah, enjoy this interlude, and be ready for the stunning finale in the next couple chapters. Or maybe the next chapter? Or maybe this really is the end? MUAHAHAHAHA. Enjoy, read, and please, review.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Nada. Zilch. Flibbertigibbet. What?

"Who," Jack started, before his eyes widened in surprise. "Runt?"

The old man laughed, a hacking, choking laugh, but one filled with mirth. "I... I haven't been called that in many years. Yes, Jack."

Jack quickly went to the side of the bed and clutched the man's hand. "Runt, oh, Runt. What are you doing here, now? I haven't seen you since..." Jack trailed off, realizing the memories that were coming to the fore.

"Since the Agency. Good times, Jack. Good times. Never thought you would outlive your old apprentice, did you?"

Jack smiled, remembering the Time Agency. Each senior agent was assigned an apprentice, to teach their ways. Some of the better agents had two or three apprentices, to keep up with recruitment, but Jack had only had one.

"Only you, Runt. Only you. How long has it been?"

The old man sighed. "Two hundred and seventeen years, in my timeline. After you left the agency, so many followed suit. You were our poster boy, you know that?"

Jack smiled his charming smile, knowing that it was true. His natural charm, combined with his fifty-first century pheromones, meant that many of the new Agency recruits only joined to try and get with him.

"Oh, that I know. Is that why the Agency died?"

The man started to speak, but was interrupted by a bout of hacking coughs. He leaned over the opposite side of the bed, hacking and wheezing. After the episode ended, he spit out the black fluid from his mouth.

"Not quite. We got... We got involved in the War. Most of our forces, including the entire Headquarters, was there when it ended." He looked at the Doctor as he said this.

The Doctor's face tightened, knowing which war this strange, dying man was referring to. He remembered the deaths, the fire, and the horrible tragedies.

"And look at you now, Jack my friend. Travelling in style! Remember how I used to get sick from Manipulator travel?"

Jack laughed softly, enjoying the nostalgia. "Yes, I do, my friend. You were much too small for Vortex travel, but you were amazingly time sensitive. Maybe that's why it hurt you so much to hop streams with the Manipulator. Remember our mission on Dynexia Eight?"

The old man broke out in peals of hacking laughter. They turned into coughs, but his smile was still unbroken. "Of course! Seven days in their medical ward, puking my brains out. How much did you get reamed out for taking so long on the mission?"

Jack barked out his own laugh, recalling the dressing down he got for that delay. Then his eyes turned sad. "How long ago, Runt. That was so long ago. But... How do you know me as Jack?"

The old man smiled a secretive smile. "After you left, I was given the mission to track you down. They wanted to know what happened, at the very least. And I was supposed... supposed to convince you to come back. I knew it would never happened, but I wanted to find you anyway."

He paused, breaking into another coughing fit. The Doctor looked around the ward, but Amy caught on almost before hearing his thoughts. She went to the sink in the corner and filled one of the disposable cups with water. She brought it back and gave it to Jack, who pressed it to the old man's lips.

He drank greedily, thanking Jack and Amy both before continuing. "That's why I wasn't in the war... I was out with my manipulator, tracing you on Sol 3 in the local year 1869, but I didn't find you."

"Awh, Runt. I was there. It would have been great if you found me."

The old man smiled again. "Oh, but this is much better, Jack. Even after the War, I kept up on my quest. I was a very rich man, since my travels let me make various investments. I lived off of my money and searched for you. It was that search that let me find out your chosen name, and your traveling companions. I guess this is him? The Legendary Doctor?"

The Doctor stepped forward, putting his hand on the man's arm. "That's me. I suppose the Time Agency had a file on me?"

Jack and the old man shared a raucous laugh. "A file?" Jack asked rhetorically. More like a whole cabinet!"

The Doctor grimaced playfully.

The old man continued. "Captain Jack Harkness, the amazing immortal man. There are no records on how that happened, but it is of no matter. What is even more important is what I found about your home. The Boeshane Peninsula, Fifty-first century Human colony on Villengard. Tell me, Jack, why do you never go by your Agency code name anymore?"

Jack frowned at the change of subject, but answered the question. "Honestly, Runt, it's a bit too conspicuous. I was on Earth, so I needed a name that would fit in. The Face of Boe certainly didn't."

The Doctor gasped, realizing the connection. Amy was party to the thoughts in his head, an dshe made the connection almost as quickly. She was only a bit confused, but she resolved to ask the Doctor to visit this Face of Boe in the future.

"No, Jack, I suppose it wouldn't. But the funny thing is, Jack, I always wondered why you were called that. I always wondered if you could be the real Face of Boe, the poster boy for colonisation to my home planet."

Jack smiled, remembering his youth, so long ago in his personal timeline. "That was me, Runt. They liked how I looked, so they put me out into the wide universe, trying to get more colonists out to our little patch of desert. That's how the Agency found me and decided to recruit me for the same thing."

The old man clutched Jack's hand tighter, speaking softly. "Jack... my friend... I was recruited from the same place. The same time. I was lost in the invasion, and my brother could never find me/ I wasn't that far, but I couldn't... I couldn't remember..."

The old man was quietly sobbing now, and Jack's mouth was hanging open in surprise. He could only manage one word.

"Grey?"

The old man nodded, and Jack joined him in tears, leaning into the convalescence bed to hold his long-lost brother in a tight hug. No words were spoken between the two, but their happiness was obvious.

'Doctor, let's leave them,' Amy said over their psychic link.

The Doctor agreed, and the pair retreated to the TARDIS. After a short while, Jack returned.

"He... He's gone."

Amy gasped and ran to him, gathering Jack in a tight hug. The Doctor joined them, enfolding them both in an embrace. Jack broke down sobbing. Amy and the Doctor held him until he quieted.

Jack righted himself, giving them a broken form of his usual charming smile. He spoke then, his voice broken and raspy from his tears.

"Thank you... Doctor, would it be alright..."

The Doctor put his hand on Jack's shoulder and said, "Of course, Jack. Take as long as you need. We're here for you."

=x=

A few days later, the funeral was over with, and the trio was back in the TARDIS. Jack was still down, but his eyes were bright as he recounted the last few hours to Amy and the Doctor.

"So the headstone carver is giving me all these suggestions as to what it should say, and I just cut him off. 'No,' I said. 'It's going to say his name, and the dates, and then this.' 'You were always there for me, Jack. Time travel confuses me, but you told me that you had already seen this, so just know - we do find each other.'"

Amy and the Doctor laughed, visualizing Jack just running roughshod over the poor sculptor.

"And he was so confused, especially by the Time Travel reference, but I didn't let him get another word in edgewise. I shut him up right, and paid, and here I am. It'll come out alright."

Amy and the Doctor were still laughing, and Jack joined in merrily.

"So, Doctor, where to? We've got the Cascade all figured out except the power source, right?"

The Doctor immediately sobered. He looked down at Amy in his arms before looking back to Jack and speaking. "I've got that figured out, Jack. We just have to make a quick stop in Cardiff to refuel, and then we'll be right as rain."

Jack smiled. "Back to the old stomping grounds? Sounds good! Maybe Amy and I can even hit the shops, yeah?"

Amy looked pleadingly at the Doctor, and he smiled indulgently at her. "Of course, I couldn't refuse a face like that. We can't be too long though, since we'll be back in time. We're on a deadline, remember!"

With that, the Doctor jumped to the TARDIS console, flipping switches and pressing buttons seemingly randomly. "Next stop, Cardiff!"

A/N: I hope you liked it, even though it was an interlude. Before you review, please notice that I am ignoring Grey's presence in the Torchwood series. Not because I didn't like it or anything, but simply because, for the life of me, I can't remember that sequence of events at all. I am going to be re-watching Torchwood soon, but I haven't yet, so that part of canon is struck down. Sorry, canon freaks! But yeah, keep your eyes out for the next chapter, that's already finished, and please, please, do review. Thank you.


	13. Harmonic Resonance Cascade

A/N: Most of my A/N is down at the bottom; read it after you read the chapter. This is just here to write a wrong; last chapter, I forgot to give a shoutout to the reviewer who first guessed the identity of the old man correctly. So, to MissMattSmith, I apologize, and here's your shoutout! Now go, read, review, and don't kill me!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

"How about this, Jack?" Amy asked, modeling a tight-fitting emerald blazer for him.

"Looks great! What do you think about this?"

Jack had changed from his usual military-style greatcoat to a more modern black wool peacoat.

"Looks good, Jack, but I think I prefer your usual coat."

Jack agreed. He returned it to the racks, and the pair went up to the counter to pay for their purchases. They wandered out to the streets of Cardiff, laden with bags.

"Well," Jack started, "We've done casual, formal, and coats. How's the Doctor doing?"

Amy checked along her psychic link to her love. "Still tinkering. He's... rerouting something? Changing something in the TARDIS to make this Cascade thingy work."

Jack smiled at her. "That link is useful! Well, that means we still have some time. He said about twelve hours, and it's only been six! What next?"

Amy thought for a moment before deciding. "I want to get something... special for him."

Jack put on a rakish grin. "Lingerie it is then!"

The pair went to a racy store up the block and spent some time there. Amy refused to let Jack see anything she bought.

"It's only for the Doctor," she said several times.

When they got up to the counter, Jack paid like he had all day. He had refused to let her pay for anything, and even encouraged her to spend more of his money.

When she protested, Jack explained. "Amy, I've been on Earth since 1869. I got a decent salary from Torchwood the whole time, and I've been investing a lot of it. I pulled out all of my money before the Depression, and put it back in for the war boom. I judiciously used my future knowledge to invest in stocks before they got big, and reaped the benefits. I've got more money than I could know what to do with. Please."

Amy relented, and their shopping had been great fun. When leaving the lingerie shop, though, she suddenly dropped her bags and fell to her knees. Jack was at her side immediately as she let out a keening wail.

"Amy? What's wrong? Is it the Doctor?"

"Doctor... No! Please, Doctor, no!"

The Doctor heard her, but it was already too late. The TARDIS had dematerialized, and the coordinates were set.

'My love, my Amelia. I am sorry. Jack will take care of you when I am gone.'

Amy broke down in the middle of a busy Cardiff street. Jack held her as she cried. When she finally was able to regain her composure, she looked at him.

Jack's heart broke at the pain in Amy's eyes. He couldn't even speak as she explained.

"He's gone, Jack. He left us here, and he shut off the link. He... He thinks that the Cascade will kill him."

Jack, stunned, pulled Amy tighter into his embrace. "How... what? The Cascade should only close the Pandorica, why would it kill him? All we needed was a power... source..."

Finally, Jack realized what the Doctor meant when he said that he had figured out their power problems.

Amy was still staring at him. "What, Jack? What is it?"

"He... For a Harmonic Resonance Cascade, you need something in perfect balance. That's the power source. It's almost impossible to find, but... The Doctor has the Eye of Harmony."

Amy was confused. She hadn't heard that term before. "What is that, Jack?"

"It's the power source of the TARDIS. It was the power for all of Gallifrey. It's an exploded star, kept in balance between nova and black hole - perfect harmony between implosion and explosion, constantly giving off energy."

Amy wasn't quite sure what that means, so she just listened as he continued.

"So to power the Cascade, the Doctor plans to rip open the Eye. The TARDIS will be consumed, and the resulting power will initiate the Harmonic Resonance Cascade."

Amy broke out in sobs again. Jack picked her up, leaving their bags on the street. The only one she kept hold of was the latest bag from the lingerie store as he guided her to one of the apartments he had kept up in Cardiff, in case he lost the Hub.

When they got to his apartment, he let them in and sat her down on the sofa. She cried softly as he made tea. When he came back out, she was laying down, he face red but dry.

"Tea, Jack?" she asked, her voice broken. "When did you get so domestic?"

Jack smiled sadly. "You could do with a cuppa. Here, drink up."

Amy did, taking the cup from him and sipping slowly. She didn't even bother to add sugar. Inbetween sips, she asked him.

"Jack, what is this Cascade thing?"

Jack thought for a moment. "A Harmonic Resonance Cascade... It's a theory. The Time Agency got it from some old Gallifreyan writings a long time ago in my timeline. Basically, it's a re-do. With the power of some energy source completely in balance, you can rip a whole in the Void and rewrite our universe with a parallel universe really close by."

"So... That sounds like it would destroy everything."

Jack was still pensive. "Kind of, yeah. But it replaces it with identical copies. Literally identical. You initiate the process on top of whatever has to be removed, and then you get the hell out of there. But without the Eye..."

"The Pandorica?"

"Right," Jack replied. "And because of the way the process works, it searches out resonance in parallel universes. Literally, it looks for one in which every single thing is the same except what you're trying to fix."

Amy wrapped her mind around that. A short time ago, living in Leadworth, she would never have been able to make any sense of it. Now, though, the Doctor had opened her mind. She got the basics of what would happen, at least.

"So... Why's it called a Cascade, then?"

"Well, the changes sort of spiral out from that central point. Like a waterfall - they start at the Pandorica, before cascading down through time and space to overwrite everything."

"Just, with exact copies, right?"

"Not even copies. We'll be rewritten with literally nothing different. We were never even copied. We won't even feel a difference. There is no change."

Amy broke down again, sobbing out, "Except... except he won't... he won't be here..."

Jack knelt beside her, silently cursing and praying for the Doctor.

=x=

Meanwhile, the Doctor had arrived. He was at a point in space and time that technically didn't exist, a nanosecond before the birth of the Universe. Outside the TARDIS was literally nothing - not air, not vacuum, just the void. Beneath him, he could see a slight ripple in time that marked the Pandorica, holding back the Time War.

Without removing the TARDIS from that nonexistant point, he started pressing some buttons and slowly spinning a dial.

"Come on... only a few billion years..."

He slowly sped up time around the Pandorica, without changing anything around it or in the TARDIS. He was still surrounded by nothingness when he hit June 26, 2010. When he approached the date, he started slowing the dial, eventually stopping it exactly on that date. What happened then surprised even him.

On the other side of the console, directly in the Doctor's view, a man appeared, dressed in the elaborate dress of a Time Lord High Council member. The Doctor gasped as he recognized this specific man, although quite younger than the last time the Doctor saw him.

"Lord Rassilon!"

The man looked at the Doctor, seeming confused. "Yes... oh, it is you."

"Yes, my Lord. I am the Doctor. What is happening here?"

"I felt a disturbance in time from beyond the lock. I see now what it is. Why have you initiated this anomaly around the Pandorica? It must never be opened."

"Yes, Lord Rassilon. That's why I'm here. It is opening, and I have to close it."

Rassilon's face grew cloudy. "How..."

The Doctor said nothing.

"Never matter. You must close it, true. But how will you accomplish that?"

"The original plan was to initiate a Harmonic Resonance Cascade."

Rassilon laughed. "My mastery thesis at the Academy! Purely theoretical... But even a Cascade that powerful would not be able to close a breach this far removed from time."

The Doctor grew even more serious. "I realized that. But I have some help."

Rassilon looked puzzled. Then he walked around the Console and gazed deep into the Doctor's eyes. What he saw there made him gasp.

"Of course... Oh, my friend, of course. You realized it as soon as you closed the first crack. The only way to fully close the Pandorica..."

The Doctor finished for him. "Is to open it fully. I have the means to do that, and I intend to."

"This may be folly, friend. But I have made mistakes in my life, so I will not stop you. It will either mean the correction of all that has gone wrong, or a new beginning for our universe. Please, how do we begin?"

The Doctor drew himself up to his full height, ignoring the buttons he had been pressing on the TARDIS console. He looked directly at Rassilon, noting absently that they were the exact same height.

"Rassilon, Lord and King of Gallifrey. I reject your leadership. As Could've Been King, commander of the Neverweres and Meanwhiles, I demand that you renounce your crown in my favor."

Rassilon smiled before speaking seriously. "Doctor, Theta Sigma of Lungbarrow. Never have I met such a worthy leader, one prepared to sacrifice their entire existence for one woman, one prepared to take the most abhorrent of steps to save our Universe. I renounce my crown in your favor, King."

Rassilon reached behind his head, unbuckling the heavy headdress he was wearing. He handed it to the Doctor, who put it on. Suddenly, the pair was ensconced in a great, clamoring crowd. Two figured stepped forward, and the Doctor recognized them as the original Neverwere and Meanwhile.

"Could've Been King crowned, Could've Been no more. You are now king. The Neverweres have ascended, and the Always-ares are born! Bastions of absolute truth, protectors of all that is and ever shall be! Bow to your King, The Lord Theta Sigma, Ruler of Gallifrey and the Universe!"

Half of the crowd bowed before floating upwards, through the roof of the TARDIS. On the viewscreen, had the Doctor been watching, he could have seen them float down, slipping into positions surrounding the gradually opening crack in time.

The other figure, Jane Harkness, stepped forward. It spoke in a whsiper, harsh but echoing in the TARDIS.

"Could've Been King... King... King... Meanwhiles descend, Aftertruths born, born. Isolated from what is also, representing all that was and is. Representing the calm before the Oncoming Storm, the truth after the lie. Protectors of what could and might be. We bow, bow bow."

With that, the rest of the crowd descended through the floor of the TARDIS, floating ephemerally through the subspace that the newly formed chasm filled. Through that chasm drifted a grotesque thing, made of fire and darkness. It came up to the doors of the TARDIS and somehow nudged them open, despite being several times larger than the opening even at its narrowest point.

The Doctor was speechless as it saw the gargantuan being in the doors of his TARDIS. Only Rassilon spoke.

"The Nightmare Child! Once, you fought the Could've Been King in its jaws, now it enters the TARDIS of the one true King."

The Nightmare Child spoke, its voice sounding strangely innocent and halting, like a toddler just learning how to speak.

"King... Cwowned and true." As it spoke, its voice grew stronger and older, rapidly gaining facility. "Was might have been, now true and is. Are you King? You are the King. I bow to you, King, for I have matured."

The beast drew its head out of the TARDIS. As the Doctor looked at the viewscreen, he saw that it was much larger than when he had fought it. It seemed less grotesque, and more at peace. The fire raged softer, and the darkness in it seemed somehow lighter. As he watched, the thing descended, laying its body across the gaping chasm in time.

"Now," whispered Rassilon.

The Doctor pulled a single lever, almost hidden under the console. When he did, the chasm shuddered. The Time Rotor glowed gold with Artron energy, surrounding a deeper, brighter colored speck - a single mote of Huon energy from the Heart of the TARDIS. The energy spilled out of the Time Rotor, expanding past the walls of the TARDIS and infusing the Always-Ares, the Aftertruths, and the matured Nightmare Child. The golden color reflected into the chasm, showing the horrors of the Time War inside it.

Dalek ships were burning, and Gallifrey was dark as the nearby sun slowly expanded. Thousands of TARDISes flew towards the Dalek fleet, firing plasma weapons that looked as if they had been hastily attached. The Doctor saw this before he looked back at the Time Rotor. The clear surface had shattered silently, and hanging there, suspended, was a single, small black stone, with a stylized symbol of infinity on it.

The Doctor reached out and grasped the Eye of Harmony. He felt the power inside of it, the fragement of a star, eternally exploding and imploding. He walked to the doors of the TARDIS and gently pushed the Eye out of it. The Eye gently drifted towards the chasm until it hung suspended, directly in the center, underneath the incorporeal form of the Nightmare Child.

The Doctor returned to the console of the TARDIS and pressed a large red button inside the shattered glass of the Time Rotor. With that button press, the Eye exploded.

The Pandorica closed, and with it disappeared the Always-Ares and the Aftertruths, the Nightmare Child, and Rassilon himself. Two waves of energy blasted out from it, spreading through space and time. The first wave was the destructive energy contained within the Eye of Harmony.

The second wave went on rewriting the entire history of the Universe with that of a parallel universe that never had a problem with the Pandorica. Everything that the first wave destroyed, the second wave instantly rebuilt with no change.

The Doctor sighed and removed Rassilon's Crown from around his neck. He sat on the floor, leaning against the console of the TARDIS and prepared himself for the inevitable. He patted the Console gently, even knowing that without the Eye of Harmony, the TARDIS was dead.

"Thank you, girl," he whispered. Somewhere, deep within the Time Rotor, the TARDIS gave off one last mournful groan.

The TARDIS and the Doctor took the full brunt of the first wave, instantly being torn apart. The second wave passed through, leaving nothing behind. In the parallel universe, there was nothing hanging suspended over the Pandorica. The new version of our universe matched the template - just empty void.

A/N: Please don't kill me. This is nowhere near how I expected the story to go. It really isn't. But it went this way, and as much as I hate it, I love it, and I wouldn't change it for the world. This is the end of Wedding Eve, the final chapter. The Pandorica is closed, the Universe restored. The Doctor has saved the day once more, at great cost. There may or may not be an epilogue in the coming days. I wrote it, but I'm not particularly happy with it, so I'm going to be looking it over and possibly scrapping or rewriting it. IDK. But yes, please, no torches and pitchforks. I do have a short SNEAK PEEK from the epilogue for you all. Mind, it may or may not stay in if I decide to rewrite it, but just a little bit to keep all y'all sated while I'm working on it. So here it is, enjoy!

=x=  
And like always, when she felt his hand on her cheek, she whispered, "Doctor..."  
=x=


	14. Epilogue

A/N: Here it is, ladies and gents! The final chapter, the epilogue, of Wedding Eve. I do hope you like it, and as always, please, read, enjoy, and review!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

All of her co-workers thought it strange, but none of them commented. Amy Pond never smiled. She didn't frown, quite, but she never smiled. Her face was almost a blank slate, but with a trace of sadness showing through. None of them asked her about it.

They were afraid to. Once, one of the guys in the office tried to ask her out. He called her Amelia. He got a broken arm, four cracked ribs, and a kick to the balls.

"Only one man calls me Amelia, and he's gone now."

Every day, when she left work, Amy walked the shortest route back to the apartment. She never varied. Left out the doors, right on main, four blocks down. The red-brick.

Every day, Jack was there waiting for her. She has no clue what he did with his day, if he worked or just lounged, but she never asked. She did know that he always made dinner. Home-cooked and always delicious, Jack hadn't made the same thing twice in the three years they had been living together in Cardiff. He was careful though, never to dip into the large variety of cuisine he had learned in his travels with the Doctor. He didn't want her to remember.

Sometimes false hope is worse than no hope at all.

She also knew that every night, right before she cried herself to sleep, he left. She always assumed that he went out to pick up some conquest, but he was always back in the morning with a hot meal for her on the table.

She did love him, even if it wasn't like that.

Tonight wasn't any different. Amy left the office, left out the doors. Right on main and four blocks down. She let herself into the complex with her key and into the apartment, which always seemed to be unlocked.

Jack took her purse into her room while she sat at the table. As always, she waited for him to come back before eating.

As always, there was a third chair, complete with a plate, silverware, and a glass. Jack forgot to set it once, and Amy broke down.

Sometimes false hope is worse than no hope at all.

After they ate, Amy went to bed. And just like every night, Jack came in an hour later and brushed her tears away. He kissed her on the cheek and gave her a whispered, "Good night."

Then he left. She heard the door close, and fell asleep some time later, fresh tears staining her pillow.

Tonight, though, was different for Jack. Tonight was the night he gave up.

For the last three years, Jack left every day and every night, searching for the Doctor. There hadn't been a single bone in his body that believed that the Doctor was truly gone. He had to be trapped somewhere he couldn't return.

So Jack searched. He had been all over planet Earth and throughout time and space with his Vortex Manipulator. It took him a few months to fix it, but fix it he did. It broke two years later. Then he started going through the old Torchwood files and the UNIT databases.

He hadn't found a single report connected to the Doctor. In fact, the only thing he had found even the slightest bit strange was the lack of reports of alien invasions and the like from UNIT. That gave him hope for a while, thinking that the Doctor might somehow be protecting Earth without coming down to the planet. But that was it.

Sometimes false hope is worse than no hope at all.

After three years, even the indomitable Jack Harkness lost hope. Tonight he left to get truly roaring drunk.

Even when travelling through time and space, Jack was never far. He always made sure to come back to Cardiff shortly after he left, and stayed near the apartment for the rest of the night. He took care of Amy so that when the Doctor did return, she'd be there for him.

Tonight, though, Jack went clear to the other side of the city. He found a hole-in-the-wall pub and sat at the bar. Halfway through his four doubles of scotch, a man sat next to him and ordered a tonic water.

Jack didn't even look up. He simply drank.

After a few minutes, the man paid his bill and stood up to leave. Before he did, though, he put his hand on Jack's shoulder.

Jack looked up at him through bleary eyes. The man didn't register as familiar, but something about him called to Jack.

His hair was long and red, a dark, fiery ginger. His eyes were a deep blue, the colour of the sea at night. And he was wearing a smart suit, looking more dressed for a night on the town than this tiny pub.

Jack didn't say anything, but the man did.

"Jack, tell her that he still loves her."

And he was gone. It took Jack a few minutes to register what the man had said, and only a few seconds to bolt towards the door. When he got there, though, there was nobody.

Sometimes false hope is worse than no hope at all.

Jack went back to the bar and paid his tab. He made the long walk back to the apartment, confused and unsure.

Was it the Doctor? Had he regenerated, or was that just someone that he sent with the message?

Jack never did figure out the answers. He got back to the apartment and checked on Amy, just like he did every night. She was sleeping fitfully, like always, and he tried to calm her.

And like always, when she felt his hand on her cheek, she whispered, "Doctor..."

He loved her very much, but not like that. She was the Doctor's, and the Doctor belonged to her.

Jack sat up all night, debating with himself whether or not he should tell Amy about the strange man. Eventually, he decided not to.

Sometimes false hope is worse than no hope at all.

And one day, many years later, Jack was walking back from visiting the cemetery. He visited every day and sat next to the gravestone that read:

Amelia Jessica Pond August 24, 1989 - July 4, 2034 "Faithful to her Doctor until the very last."

That day, though, Jack paused near his new apartment. Across the way, set back in a small alley, Jack noticed a blue police call box.

His heart sped up as he ran across the street, heedless of traffic. He reached the blue box, excitement filling his veins.

When he opened the door, however, all that greeted him was a small table with a battered incident book on top and a raggedy stool underneath. Jack dropped to his knees, sobbing with grief.

Sometimes false hope is worse than no hope at all.

A/N: And there it is. I cried writing it, and I cried re-reading it. I'm so sorry it wasn't a happy ending - I like them much better. But I'm much less a creator of these events than I am an observer. I can't change it, and even if I could, I wouldn't. Not for anything. So I hope that you all did enjoy it, even if it was much too sad. I am working on several ideas, so you won't be without my writing for too long. Not sure which will come first, but I am working on: A 10/Rose fic, a TW/DW xover with less, or no, romance, following Jack and the Doctor (10 or 11, most likely) in adventures across the universe, and a series of poems following the new series from Rose all the way through. Like I said, I'm not sure which will get to postable state first, but it shouldn't be too long until one does! So as always, please review, and I'm always open for a PM for explanations or if you simply want to chat! Thank you all, and au revoir.

Evan


End file.
